


Tales of the Survivors of Willamette

by The_Head_In_Charge



Series: My Dead Rising stories [1]
Category: Dead Rising
Genre: Admiration, Anthology, Appetite, Attraction, Brother-Sister Relationships, Caught in a Bad Situation, Dead Rising Psychopaths, Dead Rising Survivors, Drabble Collection, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Gluttony, Love Confessions, One Shot Collection, One-Sided Attraction, Other, Photo Shoots, Photography, Rivalry, Sister-Sister Relationship, Survival, Survival Horror, Survivors, Twins, greed - Freeform, psychopaths
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2020-10-01 15:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 41,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20326549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Head_In_Charge/pseuds/The_Head_In_Charge
Summary: Anthology about the survivors from Dead Rising and how they got in those situations.





	1. Lovers on the Run from the Law

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this one later after my Dead Rising 2 anthology because I didn't play the first Dead Rising game until the start of 2018 after getting a PS4. I didn't own a 360, which explains why I didn't play it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Story about Ross Folk and Tonya Waters.

One day, Ross Folk and Tonya Waters went out to the Willamette Parkview Mall to retreat from the outbreak that had occurred. With little to do in the town of Willamette, Colorado, it seemed that the mall had all that anyone could do there. The two people were madly in love with each other, enough that they would do anything for each other.

On that very day, Ross took his girlfriend to the mall, being that it was the main refuge that a lot of people who tried to evade the zombie outbreak took, added to the fact that it was big enough to hold a lot of people.

"Are you sure about this, baby?" Tonya asked, with a tone of her sounding unsure about the idea of going to a mall for refuge. "Couldn't we just get out of town completely? We could head out to Denver. We could stay at your brother's house until all of this blows over."

Ross looked at Tonya and replied to her comment, "We don't have a lot of options right now, Tonya. Sure, I thought the same thing about us going to my brother's place, but there is one problem right now: It seems that the national guard is blocking a lot of the roads. We can't get out if we tried."

Tonya had a look of concern on her face. She had never faced such an incredible problem like a zombie outbreak. Neither had Ross, but the same could be said about the whole town of Willamette, as nothing as extreme had occurred in a small town that few people knew about. No matter how big of a feat that they faced, they had each other by their sides, and they were going to try to get out of the situation anyway they could.

"Come on, let's go find a place to lie low for a bit," Ross said.

The couple walked into the Entrance Plaza, and they saw that some people and noticed some people sat and stood around, some of whom were anxious, as well as some who were prepared to fight any zombies that would come to attack them at any given moment. One survivor that grabbed the attention of the couple was an old lady who screamed out the name Madonna.

"Have you two seen Madonna? I can't find her anyway," said the old lady.

"Who is Madonna?" Tonya asked.

"My little doggy, I can't find her!" the old lady said.

The couple saw how frantic she was in that moment that they just went their way as they noticed that the lady asked other people nearby.

"Let's go somewhere else, Ross," Tonya said. "We should find some food somewhere in case we have to stay here long."

"You're right, let's go," Ross said, as the couple continued to walk around the Entrance Plaza to find somewhere to relax and stay safe from everything that had been going on.

Ross and Tonya were a little surprised that some people had taken refuge at the mall. However, with the mall's massive size, it would not have been a shock if they had come across more people in other parts of the mall. This was not like any other day at the mall in this case, as it was unlikely that anybody was there to shop that day.

After some time had passed throughout the day, hordes of zombies started coming into the mall. Some zombies were originally people who had been infected, whether they had been stung by queen bees or bitten by other zombies that happened to have come in. It didn't help that a large horde had come in because someone needed to get her dog inside, which made matters worse for some people who wanted to be safe from the outbreak. Luckily for Ross and Tonya, they had avoided such an event. However, hordes of zombies had found themselves in other parts of the mall, such as the Paradise Plaza, Leisure Park, the food court, the Al Fresca Plaza, the Wonderland Plaza, and the North Plaza. The zombies were everywhere, but that was nothing compared to a surprise encounter they had to endure.

Nearly a full day had passed, and the couple had found their way to the Wonderland Plaza, after having struggled to avoid the zombies and defend themselves against them. But what was about to happen was far worse than dealing with zombies. After the lights went out in the mall during the after hours, Tonya turned around a bit to check to see what was going on around her.

"Ross? What just happened?" Tonya asked as she continued to look around, and her body shook a bit. "I don't know about you, but I am starting to get scared."

Ross felt the same way in that moment. "I think the mall has a timer on when the lights go out, because it closes around this time. But it's strange, the stores aren't locked up, so we can find a way to be safe in one of them."

"I know that, but there's something that is giving me a bad feeling here," Tonya said. "I don't know what it is, but it's not good."

From a distance, a light had struck the couple, Tonya turned around and noticed the light hit her and Ross.

"Uh, Ross?" Tonya said. "Do you see the light?"

"What do you mean?" Ross asked.

"I mean, DO YOU SEE THE LIGHT?" Tonya had to clarify that she meant that she literally saw a light.

"Yes, I do, what about it?" Ross said.

"There could be another living person here," Tonya said. "Hello? Who are you?"

Tonya called attention to the person with what appeared to be a flashlight, only to realize that it was a big mistake.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" said the person with the flashlight.

As the light got closer to Tonya, the light started to reveal what appeared to be a morbidly obese woman with sunglasses and a police uniform.

"Hello, officer, can you help us?" Tonya said. "My boyfriend and I, we…"

"Boyfriend?!" said the cop. "You won't be seeing him much longer."

"Wait, what are you talking about?" Tonya said confusedly which faded into nervously.

The cop got out what looked like taser and turned it on, and then shocked Tonya with it, which caused to fall to the ground, but she was not out.

"What the hell is going on?" Tonya said in a rather scared tone. "Who the hell are you?!"

"I am the law and you are trespassing on this property after midnight," the cop said, who then got out her nightstick and whacked Tonya in the gut with it, which then caused her to cough and started crying a bit.

The cop then approached Tonya while she lied on the ground and started rubbing her face in a rather sensual way.

"Aren't you a pretty little thing?" the cop said as she continued to stroke Tonya's face, whom felt increasingly uncomfortable in that moment.

"ROSS!" Tonya yelled. "HELP ME!"

Ross then turned around after having heard his girlfriend scream his name and noticed the cop picking up Tonya and carried her on her shoulder. Ross ran towards the cop.

"Stop! Put her down!" Ross yelled, only to be met with a nightstick to the face, which caused him to fall backwards to the ground. It was not enough to keep him down, though, as he saw that the cop was taking Tonya upstairs. Ross was not about to give up, as he got back to his feet and tailed the cop, unbeknownst to her.

Ross followed the cop and found one store that still had lights on, and that was the Lovely Fashion House. What he noticed through the window was something he did not expect, as a lot of women were handcuffed to the tables and shelves of the store.

_What the hell is this cop doing?_ Ross thought to himself, but he was not about to let the cop take his lady hostage.

"Hey you! Put her down!" Ross said as he entered the store.

"Well, well, a man just walked right in here and thought he could be the hero," the cop said. "Well that isn't going to happen."

The cop got out her taser and went towards Ross, ready to shock him, but Tonya then got up and saw that the cop had dropped her nightstick and whacked her right in the back, only for her to shock Ross in the process. The taser didn't have enough power to put him out, though, as he quickly got up, and Tonya dropped the nightstick and approached her man and the two raced out of the store.

"Please, help us!" yelled one of the women towards Ross and Tonya, only to be hit in the face with the nightstick that Tonya had dropped and to be grabbed her by her jawline.

"Shut up, you little whore! I'm not done with you yet," the cop said, as she headed to exit the store to find the couple.

The cop then took an even more drastic measure, as she reached for her pistol. She saw the couple running down the corridor of the upstairs part of the Wonderland Plaza. However, they were not too far to avoid anything.

"Baby, we have to keep running," Tonya said.

"I'm with you on that," Ross said. "I'm with you on…AHHHHH!"

Ross screamed and fell to the ground.

"Ross, what happened?" Tonya asked and turned around noticed that Ross was bleeding from a part in his lower back. "Oh my god! Ross!"

Tonya then came to Ross's aid and had him turn around and noticed the exit wound on his stomach, which had a lot of blood coming out of it.

"Come on, baby, get up!" Tonya cried as she tried to help him to his feet. She helped him up and put his arm over her shoulder. "That's it, baby, I'm here for you, let's go. We'll find a safe place."

Tears ran down her face, but it was not enough for her to give up trying to escape from the crazy cop. They headed right for a store that across the way from the Lovely Fashion House and into an athletic shoe store called Run Like the Wind. They went inside the store to relax a bit. Ross's shirt had a bloodstain on it from the gunshot he had endured, which raised a level of concern for Tonya.

"Ross, please take off your shirt," Tonya said. "I need to see how bad the wound is."

Ross then took it off and Tonya looked on at his muscular figure to see the wound, only to have found that it was in the right part of his lower abdomen.

"Oh my god," Tonya said as she began to cry more. "I have to stop the bleeding, but I don't want to leave your side. I can't leave you like this."

"Look, just go and find something to patch me up with," Ross said. "I can't bleed like this, so you are going to have to find something. Don't worry about me too much, just come back for me."

"I will, baby," Tonya said, as tears ran down her eyes much more and then leaned over to kiss Ross on the mouth. "I will be back for you, I promise."

Right when she exited the store, she saw that there were more zombies around and went right into Kokonutz Sports Town and picked up a baseball bat to defend herself against the zombies. She knew that the supermarket was not too far from there, so she ran towards the North Plaza to get to Seon's Food and Stuff. Along the way, she saw that there were zombies who appeared to have been mall cops before the outbreak and were holding pistols. She then picked up the baseball bat to whack one of the zombies in the head so that she could take the gun. However, at that moment, the degenerate cop had finally caught up to her.

"I knew I would find you, you skank," said the cop. "You can't escape Jo Slade."

The level of fear in Tonya's body had risen a lot more than before, but she was not about to give in so easily. She turned around to face Jo, the morally-depraved cop.

"What do you want?" Tonya said. "Please leave me alone."

"I can't do that," Jo said.

Tonya pulled the gun out from the back of her pants and pointed it right at Jo, who then laughed at Tonya right to her face.

"You can't do it, you won't do it," Jo said as she continued to laugh. "You don't have it in you."

"Try me, bitch," Tonya said as she pulled the trigger, which then fired a bullet right to the left of Jo's face. Right when that happened, the evil smile on Jo's face turned into a look of shock.

"The next one will not miss," Tonya said. "You stay away from me and my boyfriend, and you let those other girls go."

Jo did not say anything, which in a surprising turn of events, she turned around and walked away. Tonya then put the gun down and watched as Jo walked away. Having realized that she didn't want to leave Ross like that, with the idea in her head that Jo would try to kill him herself, she thought of an idea to help her boyfriend. She went back to Run Like the Wind and saw some shirts around took them and started cutting them with some scissors that she found on the counter, along with some tape.

Ross looked up at Tonya and wondered what she was doing. Tonya approached her boyfriend with cut pieces of cloth and wrapped it around his body to help cover the wounds more and taped them together.

"I hope this works, baby," Tonya said. "I won't leave you."

"I still feel the pain, now let's just see if I can make it," Ross said.

"Don't say that, I did what I could," Tonya said. "I wonder why I never took any medical classes now."

"It's not too late," Ross said.

For a few hours, Tonya remained by Ross's side to be supportive of him. She didn't know if the store was safe enough, whether it's from zombies or psychopaths. Until a man in a brown leather jacket with a camera came to their rescue. The photographer had a long talk with the couple. Ross even suggested that the man get a pistol for some reason. It was a good thing that Tonya had thrown out her gun when she went back for Ross, because no one was sure what would have happened if he had his wish granted.

Luckily for the couple, the man with the camera took them to a safe place, where they waited for a rescue for a few days. It was not much for them, but it was better than being out in the middle of an outbreak.

Later that same day, Ross had something to say to Tonya.

"Tonya, thank you for not leaving my side this whole time," Ross said. "I'm blessed to have a woman like you in my life."

"Ross, I love you with all of my heart," Tonya said. "I can't imagine what would happen if you had died out there, and I want to thank you for saving me from that sadistic cop. I just wish we had saved those other girls."

"I'm sure they'll be fine soon enough," Ross said. "I love you, too, by the way."

Tonya leaned towards Ross and gave him a big hug and then the two kissed.


	2. Man in a Bind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is about Bill Brenton and the situation he was caught in.

**September 17, 2006**

Bill Brenton, an employee who worked at In The Closet that was located in the Entrance Plaza of the Willamette Parkview Mall, went into work like it was any other day. It was a Sunday like any other in the middle of Willamette, where if you needed to go and try to do something, the best place to go to was the mall. It would seem that that very weekend would be the last that would be business as usual in that town, however.

Bill was a portly man who seemed to be one who was always on top of things. Not a lot of negativity was ever spoken of him, whether it was from fellow employees or even shoppers themselves. He was a man of his job, as well as a kind man to many.

Being that Bill worked from a certain time until closing, he remained after the closing time to help set up for the following day in the store when others had left before he had to come in the following day. He went inside the warehouse area in the back of the store to bring out some things to put out before he had to lock up. However, some boxes that were set up on the upper level of the warehouse fell down and trapped him inside the warehouse.

"Hello, is anybody out there?" He yelled if there were any other fellow employees or shoppers out there, but nobody was around to hear him. Some of the boxes were a little heavy for him to push out of the way.

_Man, I hope somebody gets me out of here tomorrow morning when it opens. This has not happened to me before._

Bill had no choice but to stay in the store overnight. He was certain that someone was going to help him out of the storage area in the morning. He had hoped that his supervisor would understand that maybe he take that Monday off, even though it was not usually his day off.

* * *

**September 18, 2006**

It was morning and Bill had woken up from his sleep, he had slept overnight in the storage room of the store. He had looked at his watch and that it was not quite time for the store to open yet.

_Damn, now I have to wait a few more hours before someone comes in._

It was only 7:30 a.m. at that moment. The store did not until 11 a.m. and it did help that he was trapped behind the boxes overnight. For some reason, his flip cellphone had run out of battery power at that point. He had no way of contacting anybody. For some odd reason, that area of the store did not even have a landline phone that he could have used to contact anybody. Lucky for him, though, there was a mini-refrigerator in that part of the storage room for someone to hold food inside. He got hungry at that moment and he looked inside the fridge to see if someone had left anything there. He found that someone had left his lunch in there and just forgot to take it with him.

_Oh, good, there is something for me to eat, but I can't. It is not my food. But why would he leave it in here? I don't think he'd care._

It did not matter what time of the day it was, as Bill was just really hungry at that point and ate a coworker's leftover pizza that was left in the fridge. He could not wait any longer as he was starving. He had not eaten at all since the previous day, but then again, he did not anticipate what he had gone through, either.

Some hours passed, he had thought that someone had come in to help arrange things before opening up for business for the day.

"Hello, can somebody help me?" He had tried calling for attention yet again to no avail. Also, being that he was stuck in a secluded space inside the storage area. However, looking outside of the store and into the Entrance Plaza, it appeared to be empty for some strange reason. It was Monday, the 18th of September, and while it was the start of the week for people, but it was not really the case as something strange may have been starting in that moment. While a Monday is not the most ideal day for people to shop in a mall, it didn't seem like it was like any other normal day during the week, whether people were off, retired, or just plain ditching work or school. Something must not have been right that day.

An hour passed yet again and it was already 11 a.m., which was usually the time for In The Closet to open. Bill had tried to call attention to anybody, whether it was a coworker or a customer. He just wanted help. It did not matter to him. But once again, his calls for help were to no avail. So much time had passed that there was no sound inside the store or the mall for that matter.

* * *

**September 19, 2006**

A whole day had passed and Bill spent yet another night inside the storage room in the store. Due to his lack of energy, because there was not a lot of sustenance in the refrigerator to give him any sort of energy, he woke up a little later that morning, as his watch read 9 a.m. He seemed to be surviving with a lack of food and water, but not by a lot. It was a wonder that while he lacked energy, he was not going to quit asking for help if there was any.

Luckily for him, there was still some food left for him to eat, but it was not much as he may have needed to save some in case he had to stay for yet another night.

At around noon, while still remaining inside the store, he heard some slight sounds coming from the outside, one sound that stood out was when he heard what sounded like an old lady yelling for someone named Madonna. It was so loud that the echo came to the upstairs part of the Entrance Plaza, where In The Closet was located. Bill was a little relieved to hear that there may have been some people inside the mall at that point. Once again, he had tried to call for help. However, it was still to no avail. He even heard a voice that said "What the hell are you people doing?!" and telling people to run and move upstairs. Bill had figured that there may have been some people outside, but it sounded like it had come from the other end of the Entrance Plaza, whereas In The Closet was closer to the back end of it, where you would find the entry into the Paradise Plaza and the entrance into the Al Fresca Plaza. So nobody was able to hear him as some of that chatter happened closer to the entrance area.

Some hours had passed yet again, but it was not as long as, say, a day. Frank West, a photojournalist who happened to be in the mall helping out a fellow DHS agent, Brad Garrison, talk to a strange old man who had locked himself inside a bookstore. Frank had gone upstairs to go an check out some of the stores, and suddenly, he had heard a voice coming from In The Closet. Bill had gotten up and heard some footsteps nearby, as if he sensed that someone had walked into the store.

"Somebody there?" Bill yelled. "Help! Help, please!"

Frank had walked into the storage area and noticed a big pile of boxes there.

_What the hell…?_

He had picked up a lot of boxes and threw them to the side. Bill was relieved to see that someone had come to help him.

"Woooo! What a relief to finally get out! I owe you one!" Bill exclaimed. "I was just trying to get the place arranged when the whole pile of boxes came down on me. I've been trapped for two whole days. The mall's open today, right? It's not a holiday, if I recall. I wonder why no one had passed by until now."

Frank looked at Bill with shock and confusion. "You were stuck for two days? You haven't had contact with anyone?"

"Yeah, unbelievable, isn't it?" Bill replied. "I've lost some weight, but it was no picnic. I guess I'll just head home then. I mean the company owes me one, right? They will not care if I knock off a bit early. Thanks a lot, man, see you around!"

Bill was so relieved that he just decided to get out of there with no questions asked. Frank told him to stop and wait, as Bill got to the door of the store, only to see that nothing was what it seemed before. Bill looked outside with so much shock in his eyes like some things were out there that he had never seen before. From what he had seen, it looked there were people, but they were no longer among the actual living from what he had suspected. It almost seemed like he saw came from a really bad dream or a movie. He even slapped himself to make sure he was not dreaming about the sight he saw.

"Wait, what the hell is going on here?!" Bill said.

Frank came up to him and told him that there was a zombie problem.

"So much for going home," Bill said, with so much shock and unhappiness in his voice.

Frank had suggested that he follow him to a safe place, which was the security room. Being an employee of the mall, Bill tried to go to the door that led into the security room.

"I am afraid you won't be able to get in through there," Frank said. "Just follow me, okay? I know a way to get there."

Frank had handed Bill a katana to help protect himself from the zombies along the way. Bill had proved that he was able to defend himself against zombies on the way to the security room, when they went through the Al Fresca Plaza, through the food court, and through Leisure Park and through the Paradise Plaza when Frank led him in through the door of the warehouse, where more zombies were until they got to the elevator that went to the roof. Once they got into the security room, Bill expressed that he had a hard time believing that zombies actually existed, but what he had experienced was something that he was not going to forget.


	3. Right Place at the Wrong Time

On September 19th, the town of Willamette had already been infested with the undead. A lot of the town's inhabitants managed to retreat to the Willamette Parkview Mall, as it was the town's main source of entertainment, if not only. With the town in the midst of an outbreak, the National Guard had the whole town on lockdown, but many of the soldiers more than likely had their hands too full to focus on other things around them.

Sam Franklin, Reginald Jenkins, and Miguel Sanchez had escaped from the nearby prison. For some reason, a riot had broken out, which caused a lot of the prison guards to become preoccupied with it. However, it did not stop Sam, Reginald, and Miguel to make a break for it as they had found a way to escape from prison, which was through the sewer area.

Once they broke free, they had noticed a lot of soldiers standing guard nearby. Miguel had picked up a baseball bat that was left on the street for some reason, while Sam had a knife with him and stabbed an armed soldier who stood near a military jeep.

"Hey, man, let's take this shit," Sam said. "We got ourselves a jeep with a gun. Let's go mess up some shit."

"Right on, let's do it!" Miguel said.

"I got the gun," Reginald said as he climbed to the back of the jeep where the turret was. "I'll blast anybody."

All three convicts took the military jeep out for a joyride and to cause more mayhem than what the town of Willamette was already facing.

* * *

Meanwhile, Sophie Richards was at the mall with Sid Roberts, a man whom she had been talking to and started feeling something towards. The two had met at work and became friends, though for months, she had developed some feelings for him and they had escalated over time. Sid was a bald man who wore glasses, but was not much older than Sophie. He had feelings for Sophie too, but he had a problem letting her know how he felt. Though he was comfortable talking to her as they had gotten to know each other, he had some problems telling someone how he feels.

The two had retreated to the mall, like many others have. However, they had noticed that some of the people in the mall had turned into zombies, whether they were brought in, or were among the living prior to their transformation.

How they got to the mall was that earlier on that very day of September 19th, Sophie tried to escape from the outbreak that had occurred around her apartment complex. She had little options as her roommate was out of town, but did not specify as to how long she would be gone, though the time would more than likely extended due to some issues going on in Willamette in that moment. She tried to get out of dodge in her car, but it was low on gas as she had forgotten to fill it up the night before. The only thing she could do was try to make a call, whether it was to friends and family, and then she saw a name on the list of someone whom she was very fond of, and that was Sid. She immediately called him right then.

"Hello, Sid?" Sophie said. "I'm in a bit a trouble. Can you come and get me from my place?"

"Yeah, I'll come by," Sid said.

"Okay, great, thank you, I'll see you in a bit," Sophie replied with a smile on her face. It was a fact on her fact that every time she would talk to Sid, it would make her day better. No matter if she was having a bad day, it would improve her day.

Sophie had waited inside her apartment for a bit and looked out the window at any given moment to see if Sid had pulled up. She did not want to risk waiting outside if there were any zombies present. She sat there with the curtains open and started looking down at the floor, until she saw a red convertible pull up. She looked up and noticed a familiar face sitting in the driver's seat, which then caused her to light up a bit. She made no hesitation to get out of her apartment and approached Sid in the car.

"Hi, Sid, thank you for coming to pick me up," Sophie said.

"Anytime, Sophie," Sid said. "Where are we going?"

"Let's go to the mall, it's the only place where we might find some safety from all of these zombies," Sophie said.

"Are you sure about this? Why can't we get out of here completely?" Sid said.

"I heard that the National Guard has the whole town on lockdown," Sophie said. "We don't have much of a choice, but we will be fine."

With a touch of reluctance, Sid agreed to this. Willamette had very little options of safety. Even staying in your own home would be risky in a situation like a zombie outbreak. However, with zombies approaching the two in the car, Sid wasted no time in speeding the car to get the hell out of dodge and to the Willamette Parkview Mall. He did not bother to put the top up on his car, but he mowed through the zombies like there was no tomorrow. He was afraid of getting bit, but not afraid to run over zombies if he had to.

* * *

Meanwhile, the three convicts continued to wreak havoc on the town. With those three out of jail, they didn't care if they were to cause trouble or to be safe. They were just happy to be outside. With so many zombies around, the three decided to play a game. The rules in their little game were that there were more points if one of them killed a human, rather than zombies. Sam was behind the wheel and he would earn points if he ran over someone, while Miguel had the baseball bat he had picked up earlier and he would earn points if he whacked someone with the bat. Reginald had the machine gun in the back of the jeep, and it could not have been more obvious how he would earn his points.

It was not just zombies that had fallen victim to the carnage that they had caused, even though most of the carnage came from the outbreak. They had also murdered some innocent humans that happened to have been there at the wrong place at the wrong time. Many of the people who happened to have been on the streets when the outbreak was going on had even more to fear with these three escaped convicts on the loose looking to murder people just for fun. There was no one around to stop them, not even the local police responded to the crimes being committed by these three hooligans, nor did the National Guard respond to them, especially with one of their vehicles having been stolen, not to mention that a fellow soldier was murdered at the hands of one of the convicts.

As they had passed down the street, right near the remains of the gas station that had blown up earlier that day, they came to a stop to look around to see where they can find other people or zombies to kill. Miguel sat in the passenger's seat and turned around, only to see something right in front of him, straight away down the street, he saw the sign up ahead for the Willamette Parkview Mall.

He turned and faced his two friends and said, "Hey guys, look over there."

"Oh shit, this is great!" Sam said. "It's time for some killing!"

He then put his right foot on the gas and they were on their way to the mall.

* * *

Later on, Sid and Sophie had arrived to the mall, and noticed that only a few cars were in the parking lot on the exterior of the mall, but the majority was infested with zombies.

"Let me check the entrance to the mall," Sophie had offered to see how the mall looked on the inside. No matter scared she may have felt, she needed to see for herself how it looked. She looked around to see if there were any zombies close to her, only to see that there were no zombies near the entrance to the Entrance Plaza. However, there were some zombies in the entryway into the mall, but the doors to the inside were blocked off.

Sophie had turned around and told Sid that they could not get in if they tried, so she had suggested that they go in another way. Sid noticed an entryway to the maintenance tunnel, which also had parking spots. As soon as Sophie got into the car, Sid sped right to the tunnel, only to see that it was filled with a lot of zombies. Sophie fell back in her seat in the process and turned her head towards Sid with mixed emotion, one being that she was shocked and scared, the other being impressed, as if she got a thrill from it.

"Oh, screw this," Sid said, as he floored the gas to run over the zombies. Surprisingly enough, there weren't a lot in there at that point as one side of the tunnel was clear enough to drive through, not to mention he saw light coming in from another area. He raced to that part of the tunnel and right upwards and found some other parking spots right there. Sid stopped and parked the car right next to a motorcycle that happened to have been there as well. Right when they parked, Sophie stared at Sid blankly and sat there frozen stiff, like she could not think after what she had just endured. The only thing that could be done was for Sid to put his hand on her shoulder, which caused her to jump a bit, which then also caused Sid to jump.

"Whoa, what just happened?" Sophie said.

"Are you okay, Sophie?" Sid said to her, who then turned her attention to him.

"Oh, I'm fine, I'm just very surprised at you running down those zombies just a little while ago," Sophie said.

Sid looked at Sophie with a smirk on his face, with his left hand behind him reaching for the knob to open the driver's seat door. He then got out while Sophie still sat there, with him walking around to open the door to the passenger's side. The two made eye contact in the process, while Sophie slowly set her right foot out of the car and onto the pavement.

Some hours had passed with the two walking around trying to find some safe areas to stay in. They had tried going into the Entrance Plaza when they were inside the Paradise Plaza, only to find that the gate was lowered shut and they could not get inside. They tried to avoid other zombies by going through other parts of the mall, when they saw a staircase right by the restrooms and went upstairs, only to see a few extra zombies upstairs, along with a young photographer who looked to be in his mid-20s inside Colombian Roastmasters.

They then exited the Paradise Plaza to go walk around the Leisure Park so that they can talk about something.

"Sophie, there's something that I've been wanting to tell you," Sid said.

"Really, what is it?" Sophie turned her head towards Sid and turned her body in front of him.

"You see, I think you're a wonderful girl, and…" Sid could not bear to hold back any longer.

"And what? Tell me," Sophie said.

"Look, we've been friends for a long time, I enjoyed working with you, which was how we met," Sid said.

"Yes, go on!" Sophie said, as she was excited to hear what Sid had to say.

"Sophie, I, I," Sid said.

"Just say it!" Sophie said with some much bliss in her voice. "I want to tell you something, too!"

Right when Sid was about to say something, he noticed three convicts in a military jeep coming towards them.

"Not right now, we have to run!" Sid said as he grabbed Sophie's hand so that they could run away from possible danger. However, the convicts had caught up to the pair when Miguel hit Sid in the back of the head with the baseball bat, which then caused Sophie to scream loudly. From a distance, Frank West, the journalist who was covering the outbreak, had exited the food court along with Bill Brenton, Burt Thompson, Aaron Swoop, and Leah Stein, whom Frank had been carrying because of her bad ankle. Sophie kneeled right by Sid's body and tried to yell for him to get up, but it was no use. She then started to cry at that moment.

From the distance, Frank had asked Bill to carry Leah on his back, which he agreed to do, while Burt and Aaron continued to follow Frank, as he ran towards Sophie, who was crying for help as it was only a matter of time until the convicts were to do her in as well. Frank then called for her attention and asked her to grab his hand, so that he could lead her, along with the other survivors to the security room.

Aaron and Burt were armed with a lead pipe and a sledgehammer that were found in McHandy's Hardware in the Al Fresca Plaza, where the two friends were already trying to keep themselves safe. So they were able to protect the others, even though Frank had a baseball bat in his left hand as his right hand still held onto Sophie. Once they entered the Paradise Plaza, they went up the stairs where there were less zombies than there were downstairs and raced right to the other staircase right next to a children's shop and followed Frank's lead right to the door to the warehouse. Having known that more zombies were going to be in there, Frank told all five people to wait by the door so that he could clear the area. Once it was clear, he them all follow him to the elevator to the rooftop and to the ventilation duct that went into the security room. All of them were relieved to be safe, though Sophie was more than bummed by what had just happened. She wondered what Sid was about to say to her, though she had figured that he was going to tell her how he felt, as she was saddened by his death before her very eyes. She never got the chance to tell him how she felt about him, even though she figured that the feelings were mutual.


	4. Shadow of the North Plaza

It was late at night on September 19th, 2006 when David Bailey had retreated himself in the North Plaza when the zombie outbreak had gotten worse as the day and night progressed.

The North Plaza was an unfinished part of the mall that was still under construction. Well, for the most part, anyway. There were a few stores that were already in business, so it was not like anybody could not shop in that area of the mall. Also, from what it would seem, one of the bigger stores in that section was one of the main sources for food, and that store was Seon's Food and Stuff.

David found refuge in an empty, unfinished store in the North Plaza. He had found one that had doors so that it could eliminate any chances of zombies breaking through to come an eat him, or at least infect him. He had spent a good amount of the day having tried to keep safe from the zombies, finding whatever means he could use to protect himself. He initially had gone into the Huntin' Shack to find a gun to use, only to find that the gun store owner had threatened him to leave or else he would have been shot dead. Lucky for David, he was not there when someone met a terrible fate when someone tried to ask for weapons to use.

Although he had gone into the gun store earlier that day and was threatened, he had gone back in there much later, only to surprisingly find that the store owner was gone and he had picked up a pistol to protect himself with.

Late at night, he started to get hungry and realized that if he had to be somewhere safe and may be there for a long period of time, he realized that he needed to get some food. He knew that the supermarket was not far from there. In fact, the store was really close and he could just go in there and get the food from there and he'll be back to his safe haven. Having gone into various parts of the mall, before getting to the North Plaza, David had noticed that most, if not all of the stores did not have anybody working there at that moment. But really, with the outbreak having been the issue in Willamette, the real question was who was going to work that day?

David crossed into the area where Seon's Food and Stuff was, as well as Ripper's Blades, not to mention all the scaffolding surrounding that part of the plaza. Even though it was late at night, and despite many of the stores having had the lights shut off because of the time set in the mall for opening and closing, the light in the supermarket was surprisingly on, and the doors were unlocked, just like how none of the stores were closed off during the closed hours. David slowly opened the door to make sure no one was around, even though he suspected that the coast was clear. He walked up to the aisle counters to find bags to use to round up some food that he'll take with him. It didn't matter whether he could just take it or buy it, as no one was there to ring him up if he were to pay.

However, he was wrong about one thing: He was not alone in the store.

David had been walking various aisles to find any food that he could use, but then came an unexpected sound, like someone rolling a cart. David looked behind him as he had heard something. While he was looking on the shelf in the aisle, the sound of footsteps caused him to look up a bit, and then came the sound of a person's voice.

"Hey you, what are you doing here?" David jumped at having heard the voice, which sounded like it came from right behind him. He slowly turned around and saw what appeared to be an overweight and balding man with a green apron, and from the looks of things, he may have been an employee, and according to the nametag, the man was the store manager, and also named Steven Chapman.

David was startled at having heard Steven's voice, but he had thought that if an employee was present, he could try to get the food a more honest way by paying for it. But that was not the case.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY STOOORRRRRE?!" Steven yelled at the top of his lungs. "I don't allow vandalism in my STOOOOORRRRRE!"

Having shaken at the reaction of the store manager, David tried to remain calm in that situation. "Listen, sir, I just need some food for the night. I don't want to cause any trouble. If you want me to pay for the food, I'll do it."

"I DON'T ALLOW THIEVES OR VANDALS IN MY STOOOOORRRRE!" yelled Steven.

The main question on David's mind in that moment was why Steven was yelling so loudly. Also, why would the manager be in the store that late at night when it would already be closed, and he would have already gone home?

"Look, let me just pay for this food and I'll be out of your way, okay?" David said, only for Steven to whip out his shotgun. David wasted no time in running away, with the bag of food in his hand no less, right before Steven could pull the trigger. David quickly jumped out of the way when Steven unloaded a shell headed in his direction. Luck was not the right word to describe how David was because he was not hit by the gunfire. He headed straight for the door, shaken and could not move, and then turned his attention while he lied on the ground, only that was a big mistake, as Steven rolled out a shopping cart with multiple blades taped the outside of it, ready to pierce holes right into David.

"Holy shit!" David thought to himself and got right out of the store with the bag of food. The bag's handles were tied in a knot so that they would not fall out. He tried to run, but hit his leg against the ramp to the scaffold in the center of that area. He hit it so hard that he hurt his leg, but he was not about to give up trying to get where he needed to be. Steven went right to the door area with his weapon cart and shotgun ready to go after David some more.

David did not turn around and kept limping to get to that unfinished store, though a chill in his system made feel like maybe Steven was watching him, like he could have been ready to go after him some more. Despite the condition of his leg, David kept going until he got to the unfinished store. Right when he passed through the doorway, he fell forward and then turned his body around to sit on his bottom.

_I should have gotten some ice while I was there._

The pain in his leg was rather severe, enough that he could not walk far. But he was not going to let that affect him in the long run.

However, unbeknownst to David, a security camera in that portion of the North Plaza where Seon's Food and Stuff, as well as Ripper's Blades were caught footage of David running and hurting himself in the process. Otis Washington, a senior janitor at the Willamette Parkview Mall, called Frank West to see what was up. Another camera had shown David going into that unfinished store where he had retreated from the zombies and also Steven Chapman.

It was not long until Frank came to David's aid when he entered the North Plaza and found where he was holed up. Once Frank walked through the doorway, David trembled in fear and slowly backed away as he asked Frank if he was a good guy or not. There was little trust that he displayed, no one could blame him after what he went through in the supermarket. Somehow, he had gained Frank's trust, after he was promised to go somewhere much safer than where he already was. There was one problem, though: His leg was not completely healed. Frank offered some support as he offered his shoulder for David to wrap his arm around. David was not about to let the food that he got go to waste as he picked the bag in the process.

One of the best things that Frank had discovered was a special passage to go through to get to safety, as David had hung onto Frank's shoulder when they got to the Wonderland Plaza and entered the women's restroom. Taboos were of no importance in this situation, as it was the only place to find this passage. Once Frank had gone onto the sink counter, he let out his hand to help David get onto the counter so that they could go to the Paradise Plaza. It sure beat having to go all through the rest of the North Plaza and through Leisure Park.

The one thing that was on David's mind when Frank got him to safety was that he was more than relieved to be alive after what he had just gone through. While he was scared of being bitten by zombies, he was even more scared of Steven, who had just gone berserk, though it could have been speculated that he went crazy because of the outbreak itself. Nobody really knew.


	5. A Woman in Despair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simone Ravendark's story.

The past few days had been rough for Simone Ravendark, as she faced a dilemma that she may never escape from. It did not help that other things in her life just went away before her very eyes, as she sat in Players in the middle of Paradise Plaza having cried her eyes out, and then exhibited a pessimistic view. With what she had gone through, how could she not be so negative?

Simone had been through a lot in those few days when the zombie outbreak had occurred. While she sat right by the window in Players, she had reflected on a lot that had happened.

It appeared that like many others, the mall was the one place where many people could retreat away from the zombie outbreak that was plaguing Willamette at that moment. Simone and her boyfriend Patrick, along with Simone's older brother Scott had retreated to the mall after a very tragic event happened that same day. The outbreak had started on Monday of that week. Simone, her parents, and her brother tried to keep themselves safe by barricading their doors shut at their house. Later that day, Simone's boyfriend Patrick came by their house to check on Simone to see if things were okay.

Patrick had nowhere else to go, and no one else to turn to besides Simone. His parents were out of town celebrating their wedding anniversary, while his older siblings lived in other areas outside of Willamette. It was as if the Ravendarks were a second family to him.

Simone's father, Jeff, took a look outside and more of the zombies kept swarming and circling various parts of the neighborhood they lived in.

"Man, what caused all of this?" Jeff said.

"I don't know," said Jeff's wife Barbara. "Whatever it is, it just seems that we can't do anything."

"We're all just going to have to stay inside the house for the rest of the day," Jeff told everyone. "What else can we do? We're going to have to wait to see if this whole town will get quarantined."

Simone sat on the couch with Patrick by her side, and Barbara sat on the chair with a look of concern on her face. Simone's brother Scott shook his head. It was barely seeping into the evening and the outbreak had started hours before.

"We all have to get ourselves some rest sometime soon," Jeff said. "We can't lose sleep over this. For all we know, this shit will all be over by morning." If only what he said were true, but it was not the case.

Time had passed and the next day had come. Jeff woke up with Barbara beside him barely waking up and then looked outside the window to see what it was like outside. Barbara woke up a bit more and noticed Jeff looking through the closet to look for something.

"Jeff, what are you doing?" Barbara said.

"I have to look for my piece, you never know if there are more of those freaks outside," Jeff said.

Barbara looked at her husband, like she was unsure to think that he was either crazy or stupid for going out there to see. "Honey, please stay inside, if it's clearer, then maybe we'll get in the car and head out of town."

While Barbara was indeed scared about the zombies outside, she had an idea, even though it was not certain at that point that roads were blocked off by that point. It didn't matter to Jeff, as he went right towards the front door of the house. Simone and Patrick were sleeping on the couch next to each other, but the clatter from Jeff moving the stuff from the doorway woke up Simone. As soon as she noticed that it was her father taking the stuff down, the first thing that came out of her mouth was "Dad, what the hell are you doing?!"

Even the noise had woken up Scott and when he noticed that Jeff was finishing up clearing the barricade, he let out a big "Dad, no, don't!"

Scott tried to stop Jeff, but it was too late as he had already walked out the door to go outside. It was clear enough, but not enough as from a distance with his back turned, a zombie came towards him. Simone stood right at the door yelling towards Jeff, while Barbara went outside to get closer to get her husband's attention. Scott came outside to get his attention, too. The moment he heard his wife, son, and daughter, he turned around and got out his pistol and shot the zombie right in the head.

Jeff then walked towards his family, but out of what was left of the walking corpse came a wasp flying towards Jeff as he walked towards his family. But when he got closer, the wasp closed in on Jeff's neck and then stung him. Suddenly, he felt a sting, only to see that it was probably a bee, but this was no ordinary bee.

Jeff went inside the house with family with Patrick at the door to check and see what was going on.

"Things are fine, we should try to get out here," Jeff said.

As Jeff walked in the house, he started trembling a bit, which caused everyone to look towards him.

"Dad, are you okay," Simone asked with so much worry in her voice.

"I don't feel too good," Jeff said, as he convulsed a bit.

"Dad, what's going on? Was it the bee sting?" Scott said.

"Mr. R, you need to see a doctor," Patrick said.

Jeff continued to twitch, and then came a moment where something out of the ordinary happened: he vomited blood. At that moment, his wife, his own two kids, and the boyfriend of his daughter, all of theirs jaw dropped and eyes widened at that sight. Then came something even stranger: veins started popping out of his skin and his eyes started glazing over.

Barbara and the rest could not believe their eyes. Jeff was no longer among the living, as he was now among the undead. Barbara did not want to believe as she told Jeff to snap out of it, but there was no way that it would work, as the zombie formerly known as Jeff Ravendark got closer to his still-living wife and then opened his mouth and his teeth pierced hard through her neck. There was no going back from that one for Barbara, unfortunately.

Simone looked at her mother with a tear running down her right eye and her voice cracked a bit when she said, "Mom, no, this can't be…"

Barbara had not turned yet, fortunately, but it was only a matter of time. There was only thing she could do and that was tell them, "Look, you, Scott, and Patrick should go somewhere else. It's too late for me. Just know that no matter what happens, I will always love you and your brother. Now get the hell out of here!"

Simone, Scott, and Patrick got out and got into Patrick's car to go find somewhere safe to go. Simone and Scott could not think straight at all, as they saw their father turn into a zombie and then bit their mother, who was going to turn into a zombie no matter what as she was bitten pretty hard on her neck. Simone looked down and looked like she was about to cry. Could anybody blame her? Scott, on the hand, while saddened and scared by what he just saw, tried to be strong in this situation.

Patrick looked at Simone and said, "I am scared about all this, too, but we all have to be strong. We will get out of here. I just know it."

Scott leaned towards his sister, who was riding shotgun. "Look, I feel the same way you do, sis, but we have to keep our heads in this. Dad always told us to try to be strong even in the worst situations."

Patrick then put his key in the ignition and then took off. He then turned on the radio to find any reports about the outbreak.

_In other news, Willamette has been blocked off of any exits as the National Guard is blocking off all the roads. So for anybody in Willamette, lock your doors, keep yourself inside safe from all the zombies._

Patrick then shut off the radio. "Shit! Damn it! We don't have anywhere to go, what do we do now?"

Simone realized that there was only one place in town that people go to in order to keep themselves entertained.

"We can try going to the mall," Simone said. "There is a lot of room there, and a lot to do."

"The mall, really?" Scott said. "What are we going to do, shop?"

"Do we have any other choices?" Patrick said. "This whole town looks like a war zone. We just have to try."

Patrick then swerved on the road when he saw zombies present. It was quite a ways away from home, but to Scott and Simone, they have no home anymore. But nonetheless, they had to keep their heads up. It was all on them now and they had to do whatever it took to survive. Despite Scott trying to keep a calm demeanor, he knew that deep down he was feeling the exact same emotions that his younger sister was feeling. It didn't matter what their ages were, with Scott being 20 and Simone being 18, just seeing their parents turn into the undead was not only a scary sight, but also a tragic one.

It was only Tuesday morning, at around 11 AM, and from the looks of things, the main parking lot was still void of zombies. While zombies had been present on the way up, they had yet to find to their way to mall at that point. Patrick had found a parking spot to park his car and then the moment he stopped the car, all three people quickly got out of the car and ran right towards the entrance. At that point, the mall was barely opening.

"Come on, let's go," Scott said. "It's only a matter of time until more zombies come."

The three young people did not want to believe that they were in situation involving the undead. Being that all three liked horror movies, it felt like they were living in one, except no one wanted to be in this situation. But really, who would?

Once they entered the mall, they noticed a bunch of people standing around, as well as a small dog speeding out the door when they opened it.

"Man, I guess we weren't the only ones who had this idea," Simone said. "There's lots of room, so we should find somewhere to go."

The trio had walked searching for a clear and safe area. Not that the Entrance Plaza was not a safe place to be, but Simone felt a bit unsettled with some people in that part of a mall, especially when she noticed an old lady having realized that her dog went missing.

They tried to go into the Paradise Plaza, but it was locked off at that point, but one area wasn't, and that was the Al Fresca Plaza. Once they got outside, they trio came across something they did not expect.

Two guys were sitting by the fountain. One was wearing a dark gray skull cap and an orange long-sleeve button-down shirt with dragon and snake designs on it. The other was a guy who wore a black T-shirt with some kind of line on it that had something written on it. The two guys looked up at the trio, and the guy in the orange shirt said, "Scott, is that you?"

Scott then turned his attention towards the fountain, and those guys suddenly seemed familiar to him. "Burt? Aaron?"

It was clear that they knew each other, as they were part of Scott's graduating class and they were friends with each other, except they had not talked in quite a while until that point.

"Hey, what are you guys doing here?" Scott said.

"We had to get out of our apartment once we saw the zombies," Burt said, and then looked over and said, "Hey, Simone, how are you?"

"I've been better," Simone said. "It's just been a rough day."

"What's wrong?" Burt said.

"All kinds of things," Scott said. "We really don't want to talk about it."

"I get you," Burt said. "Well, it was great running into you. I don't know why we have not talked in a while. We will be out here, so maybe later we can grab a burger at Hamburger Fiefdom. We'll be over here."

"I'll catch you guys later," Scott said, as he slapped Burt's hand.

The trio then took off and walked through the plaza and right when they came across Flexin' and McHandy's Hardware, Simone noticed that the doors that went into the food court were unlocked. Patrick then opened the door and saw how empty it was.

"Man, I have never seen the mall so empty like this before," Simone said.

"Well, we have not been to the mall during the week before," Patrick said.

"Or maybe it's because of the zombies," Scott said, and then Simone and Patrick looked over at him. "Hey, it's emptier than it should be."

Right when they got to the center of the food court under the main sign, they noticed the doors to Leisure Park, and also the doors to Wonderland Plaza.

"Which way do you want to go?" Scott asked.

"Let's go see if the Paradise Plaza is open, even if we have to walk all the way across the park," Simone said.

Once they got outside, things just seemed so desolate that it was hard to believe that this place was the same lively place that it usually was. The Willamette Parkview Mall was the one place in town that was the source of entertainment. While there were places to go to in other parts, it appeared that there were more things to do at the mall than anywhere else. It was not just for people to shop, but also had eateries and a movie theater for people to watch movies. It even appeared that this was the only park the town had as well. They walked across the park and then Simone stepped on something she was surprised to see: a baseball bat.

_Some kid might have left it here one day._ She thought to herself, as she picked up and carried it.

Patrick looked at his girl and asked her why she picked it up.

"You never know if any zombies might find their way inside," Simone said, as it was clear that she had a bad feeling about all of this after what she went through that day. They then entered the Paradise Plaza.

From a distance, a redheaded guy was seen shooting pictures of different things, including the trio. Patrick then noticed that the doors were open to various places, including Colby's Movieland and Jill's Sandwiches. However, it seemed like they were not alone in that part of the mall, as not only did they sense an eccentric guy shooting photos when they went upstairs, Simone saw some familiar faces herself, as these two had the same faces themselves, because they were twins. These twins happened to be in a store called Lady About Town, with one of the twins, who was wearing a white top, was sitting on a table, while the girl with the cap and orange top was looking at clothes.

"Heather, why are you doing this?" said the girl with the white shirt. "This isn't the time for it."

"Any time is a good time for looking at clothes, Pamela," Heather said. "If we are going to have to stay here, we have to make the most of it."

Pamela sighed, "Whatever you say, sis." She then looked up and saw someone at the door. "Wait, Simone?"

"Pamela Tompkins, what are you doing here?" Simone said, and then looked up and said, "Hi, Heather."

"Hi, Simone," Heather replied in a less-enthused tone.

"Well, we needed to find some place safe," Pamela said. "Our parents took off to Las Vegas for a week, and they took our brother with them for his 21st birthday. They won't be back until the end of the week, but we have not told them about the zombies yet."

"Well, at least you still have your family," Simone said as her head started to go down a bit.

It did not take long for Pamela to figure out what was wrong with Simone, and just then, she wrapped her arms around her when she felt her friend's pain. Heather looked on and displayed some concern for her as well. Out of the two twins, Simone was more friends with Pamela than with Heather, but there was no animosity or distaste between Simone and Heather.

"I am so sorry to hear about this," Pamela said. "I see that you still have Patrick and your brother by your side. But if you want to talk about it, we'll be around here."

"Thanks, Pam," Simone said as she started to wipe off a tear that started to leak from her eye.

Simone then got out of the store and walked with Patrick and Scott to see what else they can do to keep themselves occupied from the zombies.

For the rest of the day, they managed to find some things to do. Oddly enough, Scott knew how to work the projectors at the theater, as no one who worked there was present and they managed to watch a movie, but he decided to leave Simone and Patrick alone, while Scott watched through the projection booth. The movie was good enough to try to cheer up Simone, who has had a rough day thus far. If only things didn't take a turn for the worse. When they got out of the theater, and Scott had exited the projection booth, the one thing that they saw was something they hoped that they would not see. In the theater lobby where the concessions stand was, along with the merchandise stand, stood a horde of zombies looking for some fresh meat.

The first thing that sprung to the minds of all three people was make a break for it. They raced right through the entrance area of the theater and once they got out and stood right by Jill's Sandwiches, more zombies were present.

"Oh no," Simone said. "What do we do now?"

"We will find something," Patrick said. "There has to be other areas of the mall that the zombies have not gone to."

Simone tried to keep a sense of optimism, especially having heard her boyfriend say that. While Patrick had kept calm throughout the entire time, he still felt a sense of fear, especially now that more zombies had found their way in. It's a good thing that the zombies did not get into the theater that they were in. When they walked around the Paradise Plaza, Scott felt a weird peck on his neck. When he put his hand right there, he realized something bad was bound to happen.

"Oh shit," Scott said.

Simone and Patrick turned towards him and asked what was wrong.

He let his left hand and opened it, only to find that he was stung by a wasp.

Simone and Patrick backed away a bit, after realizing what this meant. Simone and Scott's father was stung by a wasp earlier that same day and then turned into a zombie. It was only a matter of time until Simone's brother was going to turn, but Scott had other ideas.

"Simone, I want you to promise me this," Scott said. "When I start turning…" he then let out some breath. "Kill me."

Simone's jaw dropped when she heard her brother say that. "What? Why?"

"It's for your own good," Scott said. "Mom and Dad are now gone, and I will be one of them soon. You have to what is best for all of us."

Just when Simone's day could not get any worse, this happened. Her whole family had gone away just like that. Though Scott had not turned yet, there was no way to escape it. The bee sting had infected her father, whom after he had turned bit his own wife, which was likely that she turned by that point. The only person she had left by her side was her boyfriend.

"Okay, Scott, I will do that," Simone said, even though it was clear that she did not want to, but then Scott came up with another plan.

"How about this instead, you and Patrick just go on without me; if I turned, you two won't have to be anywhere near me. Whoever kills me kills me. I know you don't want to do this. Sis, I felt the same way after seeing what happened to Mom and Dad, you don't have to see your own brother turn, and I don't want anything like this to happen to you. Just go, okay, for me?"

Simone nodded her head after having heard her brother say that. As much as she did not want to leave her brother behind, what choice did she have? She did not want to live in fear of her brother turning right before her very eyes and then end up biting her and/or Patrick. Just then, Simone and Patrick walked off, but not before Simone turning around and giving her brother one last look of goodbye.

* * *

For the next couple of days, Simone and Patrick struggled to find safety and fight zombies if they had to. It was not easy, and considering how young they were, they still had the mindsets of teenagers and were unsure how to deal with things of this nature. It did not matter if 18 was the age of being a legal adult; the two were fresh out of high school and now had to handle things on their own. Their choices of finding safety were now limited as not only more zombies were in the rest of the mall, but they also came across some crazy people.

After they had separated from Scott, they noticed some crazy convicts out in Leisure Park in a military jeep. When the Entrance Plaza had opened up, what caused them to avoid being in there were that they heard shots fired from the second floor. Even when it was safer to go through Leisure Park, when they went to the Wonderland Plaza, they had to avoid a crazy guy who was close to their age who set things on fire, and even worse, an obese mall cop who had been seen abducting women. At one point, Patrick had to take a look and noticed some women handcuffed and tied up in the Lovely Fashion House while Simone waited in the hallway nearby. No way was he going to risk Simone being abducted like that, and Patrick was clearly no match for the mall cop either, as she was three times his size. Also, various parts of the mall were swarming with weird masked men in yellow raincoats.

Surprisingly enough, when Simone went to the restroom, she had noticed a special passage as a ventilation duct was open and had Patrick follow her and they found themselves in the Paradise Plaza again. They never left each other's sides. The two had been going out for a year and a half at that point and felt that they loved each other.

It was now the third day and they remained side by side. The day began, and Patrick and Simone woke up behind the counter at Cam's Camera. He did not want to wake up Simone, so he tried to see if there was a way to look for some food for her to eat. His only options in Paradise Plaza were Jill's Sandwiches and Colombian Roastmasters. He had stepped out into the mall and zombies were present, along with the raincoat guys, one of whom noticed him walking and called attention to the others. Patrick noticed and tried to run away. A man with a camera had a small chainsaw with him and slashed those guys away, which was enough to keep the raincoat guys distracted, if only he thought something else would happen. While he ran, he then turned his attention in front of him and noticed a zombie was close and then tripped and fell. Unfortunately, the zombie was someone familiar, as it was Scott, who had since turned since the last time they saw each other. Patrick got up and tried to run, but then the zombified Scott had grabbed him and opened his mouth and bit Patrick on the shoulder. The photographer guy wacked the zombie Scott with a baseball bat, which then freed Patrick. Before the photographer could say anything, Patrick ran back to Cam's Camera to talk to Simone.

Patrick had not turned yet, but he needed to talk to Simone right away. When he returned, Simone woke up and saw him, but he wasted no time in what he had to say.

"Simone, I have some bad news," Patrick said. "I saw what used to be your brother and…"

"What?" Simone said.

"He…" Patrick said.

"Just say it," Simone said.

"B-bit me!" Patrick said, as he put his down.

Simone then let out a big "No!" and then hugged Patrick. "This can't be happening!"

"I'm afraid it is," Patrick said. "This time, when I turn, kill me, okay? You'll be doing both of us a favor."

Simone did not know what to think. First her parents, then her brother, and now her boyfriend, it just could not get any worse for her. It's like her whole life was going down the drain during those few days. She then let go of Patrick and promised him that she will put him out of his misery.

She got up and climbed over the counter to look for something she could use. She noticed a zombie drop a handgun and then picked it up. At that moment, Patrick started convulsing and vomiting blood, then his skin started to decay and his eyes started glazing over. There was only one thing she could do, and that was pick up the gun and point right at Patrick's head, and pull the trigger. Once she had it pointed directly to his head, she squeezed the trigger then the bullet pierced right through Patrick's head and blood squirted out and his body fell right to the floor. She could not contain herself as she started crying after what she just did.

_Nothing matters anymore._ She thought to herself, as she got the pistol and put it right at her head, but before she could pull the trigger, a zombie came from beside her and grabbed her, which caused her to drop the gun into the moat and under the bridge. The zombie went right for her left arm and barely bit it, but before it could get any deeper, she shoved the zombie away and noticed a little blood coming out of her arm.

_Great, this is really great. I might as well just die now._ She thought to herself. She went back to Cam's Camera to find some white paper to use and some tape to cover the wound. She then walked around and then went into Players where she sat down and reflected on everything that happened to her in the last couple of days. She didn't feel that there was anymore reason to live. Now that she had been bitten, it was only a matter of time until she would turn, or wouldn't she? The wound was not that deep, but no one knew what would happen.

The same photographer from before, Frank West went around Players later that day, and noticed Simone sat by the window all by her lonesome. He had been informed that a girl was sitting a CD shop and that she looked exhausted. Frank walked in and then walked up to Simone to talk to her.

"Are you okay? I'm here to help," Frank said

"You came here to help me? Ha…" Simone said with so much pessimism in her voice.

"That's right," Frank said. "There's a helicopter coming to save us on Friday. Everyone's fled to the Security Room. I will take you there, too."

"To save us," Simone said with derision. "Sorry, but it's too late to save me. I've been bitten."

"So you were bitten, so what?" Frank tried to reason as best as he could. "That doesn't mean that you have to turn into one of them."

Suddenly, Simone started thinking a little more positively. "Seriously, where did you hear that?"

"A lady named Isabela," Frank said. "She is a medical technician and she knows a lot about the zombie thing."

"She does, huh?" Simone said. "How?"

"Um, yeah, about that…" Frank tried to find a way to explain it. "I really cannot explain it here."

"Is it like a disease or something?" She asked. "Or is her specialty in B-movies?"

Frank retorted, "Look, all I know is that she is the only one who knows how to deal with this thing. She probably has some way of treating it. Just trust me, okay? I'll take you to her. Please, come on."

Simone remained skeptical about Frank's word, but she had to find out one way or another. "You really trust that woman, don't you? I guess you deserve the same. Take me to her."

Simone had joined Frank as he took her through the warehouse right by Cam's Camera. On the other side of the door were more zombies. Frank told her to stand by the door as he would clear the area of zombies for her, and when he got to the elevator, he let out a jar with a queen and threw it, which caused the zombies to collapse from the impact. Frank then called for attention to get to the elevator. Once they got to the roof, Frank led the way to the ventilation duct to get into the Security Room. When they got inside, Simone told Frank to take her to Isabela, and right then, he opened the door to the room where she was with Jessie.

"Hey, Isabela," Frank said. "This girl had been bitten. I was wondering if you could check on her."

Simone looked at Isabela like she was unsure if she could trust her, as she did not expect a medical technician to look the way she did.

"I will take a look at her," Isabela said to Frank, and she looked at Simone. "Don't let how I am dressed fool you. I know a lot about the zombies out there. You have to trust me on this."

"I'll take your word," Simone said.

As Frank left, Isabela went and took a look at Simone's wound. The thing that was noticeable was that the bite barely pierced her flesh. Though she bled, the wound was not deep enough that it would be a sure thing that she would turn.

"You might be really lucky," Isabela said.

"Oh, I would not say that," Simone said, as she thought more about everything that had happened to her.

"Well, you should just get some rest," Isabela said. "I might look at it some more later."

Simone then got out into the area where more survivors were. She saw where Heather and Pamela were, but she did not want to go in there as there was too much on her mind at that point.

* * *

Hours had passed and she got up to talk to Otis, who was by the duct and asked him to contact Frank. Otis wondered why, but she then told him that she wanted him to bring her a handgun. Otis took a deep breath through his teeth when she heard that, but she told him that's important to her and that she won't shoot anyone with it.

"Okay, I will tell him," Otis said, who then contacted Frank about getting the gun.

Simone went back to the room and she had distanced herself from just about everyone, but just then, Frank had followed up on her request. She got up the moment she saw him and approached him.

"Thanks for coming," Simone said.

"No problem," Frank said. "So, what do you need a gun for anyway?"

"You should already know the answer to that," Simone said. "I've been bitten. I mean, I was treated and all, but there is no telling when I'll change. I don't want to cause trouble for everyone. They have enough problems without me. Did you bring it?"

Frank then got out the gun, which then caused everyone to back away. "Relax, people, it's for this young lady right here."

He handed the pistol to her, which she holstered it in the back of her pants.

"Thanks," she said. "Don't worry; I will not use it, at least not anytime soon. And I will not use it on anyone here."

Simone then sat back and waited for what may or may not happen.


	6. Barricade Pair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Burt Thompson and Aaron Swoop.

Like many people who had retreated to the Willamette Parkview Mall, it was no secret that more of the mall had become infested with the undead after a while. Whether it was caused by someone who just needed to get her dog, despite being a bad move in the process or maybe if the zombies just managed to get into various parts of the mall through various means. Whatever the case was, some people just needed to find their own safe haven.

For Burt Thompson and Aaron Swoop, it was not easy trying to find a place to hide in. The two young men had experienced a lot prior to going to the mall. Being that the two were roommates, especially in the middle of a small town like Willamette, the week of September 18th was like no other that they had experience previously.

Their everyday life was rather basic up until then. The two worked menial jobs, but they made enough to help support themselves. They had also taken a semester off from a community college that was miles outside of Willamette because they did not want to commute and their schedules got a little busier at their jobs. However, if they were going to school, they probably would have been in a safer area considering the community college was outside of town. It probably would have been a good decision had they been outside of town, though it could have been said about a lot, if not all of the inhabitants of Willamette.

Burt and Aaron had gotten to the mall before everything had started getting worse. In fact, the outbreak had started on that Monday the 18th, but it did not get worse until the following day. If anything, the duo had thought ahead and gotten there before things started to escalate.

Both of them had jobs at the mall, with Burt having a job at Weber's Garments, while Aaron worked at Eyes Like Us. Both stores were located in the Al Fresca Plaza of the mall.

Burt and Aaron had gotten to the mall on the evening of September 18th, when zombies started to infest the town more than before. While the town had not been overrun with the undead on that Monday, Burt didn't want himself or his friend to be trapped by the walking corpses. The two young men had been working at the mall for about a year up to that point, so Burt had come up with an idea to his friend while they were at their apartment.

"Hey, Aaron," Burt said. "I thought of something to get ourselves out of this."

"What's that?" Aaron said.

"We can try going to the mall," Burt said. "There is a lot of room for us, and I don't think the zombies will try to get in."

Aaron was not sure what to say about this idea. He was already scared of encountering the zombies; even though he had not set foot outside since the outbreak had started. The idea of the undead actually being a real thing was unreal to him.

"Look, we can get in before the place closes," Burt said. "Besides, I got a key to get inside."

Aaron looked surprised. "Where the hell did you get that?"

"I picked it up when a security guard dropped it one day," Burt said. "I have been meaning to get it back to him, but I think it will be useful for us now."

Aaron sat there and looked at his friend like he was crazy. Whether Burt found the keys or stole them, none of that mattered, as the only thing on both of their minds was to go and find some safety. It was 9 at night, and right when the two were about to leave their apartment, they had noticed some zombies from a distance. How they were able to know was that the eyes were glowing red at that point, as when night fell, the zombies' eyes started to glow and to top it off, they also become a little more powerful. The two friends knew nothing of the strengths of the zombies in the darkness, though the glowing eyes were a great indicator to avoid them. Aaron took one look at a few zombies from the distance and he instantly ran towards Aaron's car and right when he got into the passenger's seat, he bent his body forward and faced down towards the floor.

"Dude, what's wrong?" Burt said.

"I'm scared!" Aaron said. "I just saw some zombies out there and I am afraid that they are going to get us."

It was nighttime and though the streets were crawling with zombies, from what it seemed, it could be worse. The roads were open enough for Burt and Aaron to get to where they were going. As Burt drove on the road, the roads were clear from traffic, so he felt the freedom to run red lights if necessary. It was not like he was concerned in running over zombies if he had to, because those people were already considered dead. Running them over would just be putting them out of their misery, if they had any. It only took a few blocks for Burt and Aaron to reach their destination and surprisingly enough, there were not a lot of zombies to be seen around the area of the mall. Burt got out of the car, and Aaron followed him. Aaron noticed a zombie about 10 feet away from him and he just stormed off to the entrance doors that led into the Entrance Plaza.

"Aaron, where are you going?" Burt only saw his friend run off the second he got out of the car, but then he looked as the same zombie from before had started getting closer. "Oh shit!" The only thing Burt could do right then was run to where his friend was. Surprisingly enough, the doors to the mall were unlocked, so the only thing they could do was just enter at that moment. Burt then looked at his watch and it was only about 15 minutes until the mall closes. While the shopping center was empty, the stores were not closed yet. Even when the time came for the lights to shut off, it did not look like anybody was around at all.

"What do we do now?" Aaron said.

'I'm tired," Burt said. "Let's go find somewhere to sleep."

"Where will we sleep?" Aaron replied.

Burt saw one shop that provided what they needed and it was right on the corner to his left, and that store was Sports High. The store had the supplies they needed such as sleeping bags and a tent. They walked right into the store and then set up the sleeping bags. Aaron took his sleeping bag inside the tent, while Burt set his up in the store. It was almost 10 PM, but the two friends were really tired, so right when they lied down in their areas, they quickly passed out.

* * *

**Eight hours later.**

It was now six in the morning, and Burt awakened from his sleep and noticed that the gates to the store were now closed. However, he also noticed that he and Aaron were not the only ones in the mall at that point. He took a peek to the outside of the store and noticed two men who were wearing blue jackets that said "Willamette" on the back in yellow letters. One of them was an African-American man who appeared to be in his mid-to-late-60s, the other was a Caucasian man who looked like he was in his late-30s.

Outside of the store, the two men were looking around to find anything to clean.

"Hey, Otis," said the white man. "Is it just me, or is there nothing for us to clean?"

"Greg, in all my years of living, especially in the years I have worked here," Otis said. "You see a lot of strange things. Hell, I was here yesterday and I had never seen the place so empty."

"This place has only been open for three years," Greg said, as he looked around the Entrance Plaza. "I started here when it first opened and usually there are a lot of people, even during the week."

"Yeah, you said it," Otis said, as he looked at Greg. "Even when there are a lot of people here, there is always something for us to clean. I have never seen the mall so spotless before."

Otis then looked up and saw something peculiar through the gate to Sports High. "What the hell? Greg, come here."

"Yeah, what's up?" Greg said.

"Is it just me, or is that young man locked in the store?" Otis said.

Greg then looked up and saw Burt standing there as he tried to call the attention of the two janitors.

"Was he here overnight is what I want to know," Otis said.

The two janitors approached the store, and Otis got out a key to unlock the gate to raise it up. "Hello, young man, what are you doing here so early?"

"My friend and I, we needed to crash for a bit," Burt said.

"Wait, what's going on?" Greg asked Burt.

"Come on, you guys didn't see what was going on outside?" Burt said. "Maybe I am crazy, but my friend and I saw some zombies yesterday."

Just then, a look of shock got to the face of the two janitors. They walked towards the doors to the entrance and from the looks of things; they saw a couple of zombies walking around the parking lot.

"What the hell is going on out there?" Greg said.

"I don't know, but it just does not seem like any other day for us," Otis said.

Meanwhile, Aaron woke up and then unzipped the door to the tent and looked and saw Burt talking to the two men. He wasted no time in approaching his friend and the janitors.

"Burt, what's going on?" Aaron said as soon as he got to his friend.

Burt turned around and saw Aaron standing there. "I was just telling these two about the crazy shit we saw last night."

"I've seen some crazy stuff throughout the years, but this beats the hell out me," Otis said.

Greg replied, "You know, I have to go check around the other parts of the mall to see if any of those zombies have come in at all. I will catch you later, Otis."

Otis responded, "Okay, let me know if you find something. Just call me on the radio."

Greg then opened up the big gate that locked off the other half of the Entrance Plaza. Right when it opened, Burt and Aaron then took off.

"Hey, where are you boys going?" Otis said.

"We have to go check something out," Burt said, with Aaron following him.

* * *

**Later in the day.**

It had been hours since Burt and Aaron had woken up from their sleep. It seemed irregular for the two to have to crash in a mall of all places, but really, there was not much for them to do at their apartment. They certainly did not want to lock themselves up in closed space for a few days, so what else could they do?

Somewhere along the way, Burt and Aaron ran into a friend of theirs named Scott Ravendark, who was glad to see those two still alive, as well as glad to see them as he had not talked to them in months. At some point, Burt and Aaron walked back into the Entrance Plaza and noticed that the big gate had closed off half of that section once again. What was also noticeable was that more people had come to the mall, rather than the ones they saw. Several people were seen standing and sitting around the area. However, being that the two were standing right by the escalator in between Men's Storehouse and Everyone Luvs Books, a strange old man with a cane walked up to the two young men.

"What are you two doing here? Why did you come?!" the old man said. He swung his cane in downward motion as he continued to yell, causing Aaron to fall backwards onto his back, and Burt to back up a bit.

Burt stuck his hands out as Aaron grabbed them so that he could get up. "Come on, Aaron, let's get out of here! This old man's giving me the creeps!"

The two friends went outside into the Al Fresca Plaza to take a breather, but it was not long until some zombies managed to break their way into the outside. Aaron turned around and screamed at the sight of the undead and started running away. Burt turned around and started to run, but tripped. He looked up and saw Aaron running down the corridor and turned to the right into Weber's Garments. Burt got to his feet and saw a baseball bat lying around for some reason and quickly grabbed it and ran towards the store that his friend went into.

Along the way, Burt swung the bat towards zombies that were near him. It didn't matter to him if they were dead, but rather just to get them off his back. He rushed right into the store and saw his friend cowering in the corner.

"Hey, Aaron," Burt said. "Are you okay?"

Aaron lied on the floor near the wall on the opposite end of the store. Burt approached him and saw that he was trembling at what he just saw. While he was scared of the zombies that he saw the night before, he had just seen a larger group of them coming towards them. Burt then looked around because he just sensed that it was only a matter of time until zombies were to find their way into the store. He looked at a shelf that was in the store, and saw a wooden bench outside that was in the corridor separating the store and Flexin', the gym that was right across. He then went into McHandy's Hardware to pick up a piece of drywall. He went back into Weber's Garments and set the drywall aside and then went to pick up the bench and took it inside. He set the drywall right to the doorway, and then dragged the shelf towards it, along with the bench. He then noticed a wooden chair behind the counter and then set it right there to barricade him and his friend inside the store.

That should do it. Burt thought, and then looked at his friend, who was still cowering in fear. He walked up to Aaron and then put his left hand on Aaron's right shoulder.

"Hey, buddy, we're going to be okay," Burt said. "They're not going to come in."

It was not long until they heard a knock on the barricade. Burt and Aaron looked up in shock.

"Hello? Is anyone in there?" said what appeared to be a male voice. "Can someone help, please?"

The man continued to knock until the two friends heard a sound of a scream and a snarl, as well as what appeared to be the sound of flesh being ripped apart and also blood splatter. Burt and Aaron sat their frozen stiff with their eyes widened at what just happened. They didn't have to see anything to know what just occurred in their presence.

Only a few hours had passed, and more people tried to ask to be let in, only for them to meet their unfortunate fates, until one person managed to break the barricade down who was holding a sledgehammer and carrying a camera.

Burt then looked up and saw that the photographer got in and went right for him. "Dammit, just what I need, another crazy person harassing me!"

Burt stormed right towards Frank with his baseball bat and swung it towards him, only for Frank to dodge his attacks. Frank managed to get behind the counter, but Burt followed him and tried to hit him again. Frank tripped and fell, and Burt swung the bat in a downward motion, only for Frank to catch the bat, and then kicked Burt in the gut, which caused him to fall backwards.

Frank had the bat his hand and walked up to Burt while he was on the ground and put his hand on the back of his head.

"Shit, just leave me alone, you son of a bitch!" Burt yelled towards Frank.

Frank retorted, "Knock it off, you little punk! I'm not here for a fight, just listen to me!"

Burt then got to his feet while he was panting, "You win. Do whatever you want. Talk to me, kill me, whatever."

"Listen to me," Frank said. "I came here to help you guys. I can take you someplace safe."

Burt then looked up with shock. "Shit! Why the hell didn't you just say that in the first place? Just get me the hell out of here!"

Aaron then looked up, and then yelled, "Come on, Burt, I want to go, too!"

Frank had already gotten someone to join him previously, as an overweight man in a red shirt and a green hat was following him. Frank then went to talk to an emotionally-wrecked woman who was in a nearby jewelry store.

Burt then took the sledgehammer that Frank dropped in Weber's Garments. Aaron, though scared about what was going on, felt the need to have to step up a bit, as he knew that more zombies were about to get in his way. He went into the hardware store and picked up a lead pipe and started hitting zombies as the group of people was on their way back to the security room. Of course, along the way came a major detour as a young woman was seen grieving for a man who was murdered out in Leisure Park. It was not long until she was next to be killed by a gang of escaped cons.

On the way there, Burt whacked a good number of zombies with the sledgehammer, while Aaron managed to kill some, but when some got closer, he ran away to get closer to the group he was with. It was not long until all of them reached the Paradise Plaza, only to find that more zombies were in there, too. Burt and Aaron were the only ones who could try to fight the zombies. Though the woman Frank was leading could walk, she was clearly in no position to try to defend herself after what she had just witnessed, while the other man was carrying the other distraught woman.

Aaron displayed a lot of courage in dealing with the zombies on the way to the safe zone. It was not long until they found the door into the warehouse area, except this time, Frank had to clear the entire area, especially the elevator.

It was not long until all of the people were home free. Burt and Aaron found a room to stay in until the time they will leave. Aaron sat down on the floor and Burt approached him.

"Hey, man, I saw what you did out there," Burt said. "It's great that you stepped out, even though I know you were really scared."

"You have no idea," Aaron said. "But I had to do something. I was even more scared when I saw those crazy guys on that jeep. I thought we were going to get shot."

"Look, we're here, we're safe," Burt said. "Don't worry about any of this shit. We'll be fine."

Aaron sighed. "I hope so, man."

Aaron sat there and thought about what he had just gone through, while Burt walked off and saw the same old man he saw from early in the morning standing by. He approached the air duct.

"Whoa, whoa, where are you going, young man?" Otis said.

"I need to take a breather," Burt said, and then got out a lighter and a bottle with what appeared to be joints. Otis looked at him like he was crazy to be carrying that kind of stuff. "Don't say anything about this. I just need to clear my head."

Otis then looked at Burt with a smile. "Oh, don't worry. I have done some of that in my day. I won't tell anybody."

Burt then walked out through the duct and stepped outside in the area of the roof. He lit up a joint that he had and thought about all of the crazy things that he had endured that day.


	7. Survivalists

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brett Styles, Jonathan Picarden, and Alyssa Laurent.

It was no secret that survival was the only thing that mattered when being in the middle of a zombie outbreak. For Brett Styles, Jonathan Picardsen, and Alyssa Laurent, the trio had the right idea on how to stay alive.

For three days, the three friends stocked up on whatever they could find to use against zombies, but they also came prepared with firearms and restocked on ammo if needed.

Brett and Jonathan had served in the military, but each of them was in a different armed force. Brett was an ex-marine and had enlisted right out of high school and served for about eight years. Jonathan was in the army and had done six years and was only one year removed from his last year in the service.

The only one of the trio who was not a veteran was Alyssa, an attractive yet mouthy auburn-haired woman who wore a red dress, which was a stark contrast to the two vets, who were rocking the camouflage.

"Man, how did we end up in this mess?" Jonathan said. "I thought that I had seen a lot of bad shit when I was out in Afghanistan and my brief time in Iraq, but this brought everything to a whole new level."

Brett led the way, as he seemed like the unofficial leader of their troop, for lack of a better term. With little zombies where they were, it was a good time to turn his attention to his friend.

"Jonathan, don't forget that I served in those wars myself," Brett had to let him know that he was also in the service, which was already known. Being that he was older than Jonathan by three years, he was a little more experienced, but none of them had experienced dealing with the undead. In fact, like everyone else who got caught up, it was a whole new experience.

"I know that," Jonathan said. "And we had agreed to friendly fire if things got ugly, like if I got bitten, you would put me out of my misery, and vice versa."

Brett took a deep breath and sighed over that comment. While fear of death was not an option in this case, as all three people needed to keep their heads straight in this situation, it wasn't easy having to reminisce about the times he had to give mercy killings to fellow wounded marines. They were wounded to the point of having no chance of living, so he did what he had to do.

The trio walked around the North Plaza, the unfinished part of the mall that only had a few stores that were in business, while everything else was empty. Brett and Jonathan continued to talk about the situation, which led to distraction. A zombie had approached the two friends, but got close to Brett, so close that he barely turned his attention when the zombie was ready to grab and bite him. There was no time to draw his large machine gun, until blood came out of the zombie's head from a gunshot. Right when the zombie's rotting carcass fell to the ground, the two men turned to their right and noticed smoke coming from a barrel of a pistol, as Alyssa pulled the gun towards her mouth and pointed it upwards and blew the smoke off the barrel.

"That was a close one, huh?" Alyssa said. "I swear you need me sometimes."

Jonathan and Brett chuckled at that comment, even though they could have been eaten alive.

Alyssa had not known the two guys for too long, but she had known them long enough to really say she was a friend to them, even though one of them sensed that she liked him in a more-than-a-friend kind of way. The two men met in a veterans program, which led to them joining a gun club, where they met Alyssa, who had a fascination with firearms. One time, the two men found her at a shooting range and looked at her with amazement at how proficient she was with using a handgun.

But really, one of them suspected that she had joined the gun club to meet guys. One question that was on the minds of the two men was why was she wearing a dress in that kind of situation? It wasn't like she didn't have any other clothes to wear or if that was the first thing she saw to put before going anywhere. It almost seemed as if she wanted to make an impression on one of the two men, despite how much of a help she was towards her companions.

The trio had found the hallway that led to Huntin' Shack. There was only one problem, though: there were a lot of zombies down the corridor. There were only two things that could be done. One was either turn around to find somewhere else to go. The other was just going right through the zombies themselves. Besides, they needed more ammo for their guns, as they already went to Ripper's Blades to get knives for alternatives in combat.

"Brett, where are we going?" Jonathan said as he blasted through some zombies with his shotgun.

"We need to find some more ammo," Brett said. "I'm sure Cletus can hook us up."

"Yeah, we need more ammo!" Alyssa said. "This zombie shit is crazy!"

Jonathan sighed. _Man, that girl talks a lot, doesn't she?_

As soon as the way had been cleared of the zombies, Brett opened the door to the gun store, only to see that it was empty.

"Hey, where's Cletus?" Jonathan said.

"He probably ran off," Alyssa said. "But it's not like him to abandon his guns like this."

Brett walked around and noticed some bottles of alcohol behind the counter, and also a mini-fridge somewhere with some food in it.

"Looks like we found a safe place for now, at least until it clears up," Brett said.

"What if that doesn't happen?" Jonathan said.

"Yeah, what if that doesn't happen?" Alyssa said.

"The only thing we can do is fight to survive and if none of us make it, then so be it," Brett said.

Jonathan looked at his friend with so much agreement in his eyes, as he had faced death multiple times on his tours of duty. Alyssa, on the other hand, had put her hand against her mouth and turned her face away from the two guys in a quick second. She wasn't a vet like the two men and despite being trained to use a gun, she had a level of concern about whether she would make it or not. She managed to take out some zombies throughout the time she was with them, but had a few close calls with them.

Brett had to reflect on all the time that was spent in the mall since the outbreak had started. It had only been a couple of days, but what a crazy two days it had been. The gun shop wasn't much of a safe haven for the trio. It wouldn't be fair to say three men as one of the members of the group was a woman, whose enthusiasm was rather high for being in a situation like a zombie outbreak.

How everything started for them was that the trio went on a hunting trip to the outskirts of Willamette. The town was in a rural area, which was amazing to hold such a massive mall to begin with, but it did, even though there was still a lot of a country area around there. Brett, Jonathan, and Alyssa mainly went out into the outskirts to hunt some animals.

However, things didn't go to plan when the trio saw what appeared to be, or what used to be them, when they got back into town. The two men and one woman group were armed to the teeth that they had little worry in defending themselves. But the amount of ammunition that they could only get them so far, as there was a good chance that they would run out of bullets or shells at any given point.

There were only two options that they would have to choose for survival. The first one was find any weapons and/or ammo to stock up on in case they run low. The other was to find safety. Being that there were a lot of zombies out in town, the latter was probably the better option for them.

Once they had reached the mall at the end of town, it appeared that a lot of zombies had found their way into various sections, such as the Entrance Plaza, Al Fresca Plaza, and so forth. It was as if they couldn't go anywhere where there were no zombies.

At one point, they needed to find somewhere safe, as that was the only thing on the minds of all three individuals when they were in the Entrance Plaza. They all walked around and fought, but as Jonathan turned his head in different areas, there was a door in between Robsaka Digital and Jamming Juvenile that may lead to the sanctuary that they needed.

"Hey, I know a place where to go," Jonathan said.

Brett and Alyssa turned their attentions towards their friend, who pointed his finger towards the door, which said "Security Room" on it. Jonathan led the way, with Brett running behind him, and Alyssa running on high heels, surprisingly enough. Jonathan reached the door, but then noticed more zombies walking towards them. Brett drew his LMG and Alyssa drew her pistol and blasted away at each of the zombies that walked towards them. Jonathan opened the door which had a hallway that also had zombies roaming around. It wasn't an issue as the three friends fired away at them to clear the way. Their decaying bodies dropped and blood squirted out and splattered all over the wall. Once the zombies were completely dead, Jonathan led the way and found the other door to get into the security room. However, it wasn't the outcome he had expected.

"Shit!" Jonathan yelled.

Brett turned around, "What's wrong, brother?"

"This door won't open!" Jonathan said.

"What?!" Alyssa yelled. "That's bullshit!"

Alyssa drew her pistol and pointed it at the doorknob. "Step aside, boys!"

Right when she was about to fire her pistol, more zombies came into the hallway through the door that was left open; the same door that was between Robsaka Digital and Jamming Juvenile. The trio had no choice but to fight against the zombies to get out of there alive. While they were successful in getting out of there alive, another threat was about to go their way.

When they got out of the hallway, Alyssa turned her attention towards her right. "Um, guys?"

Brett and Jonathan got out and the moment they heard Alyssa say something, they saw which direction she faced and right up ahead from their point of view was a group of people wearing yellow raincoats and green masks saying some weird ritualistic stuff. Once the trio drew the attentions of the raincoat-clad people, one of the cult members drew a knife and started running towards them. Alyssa quickly drew her handgun and shot the running cult member right in the head and the person's body dropped to the ground and quickly released the knife from its hand. Jonathan went forth and picked up the knife.

Alyssa fired her gun, as did Brett and Jonathan fire their guns. A couple of cult members sneaked up behind Alyssa, who turned around and a cult member immediately blew some spray into her face, and another cult member grabbed her by her waist. Jonathan turned around and noticed Alyssa being taken away. He quickly reacted and drew the knife he picked up and run towards the cult member who was carrying Alyssa's unconscious body and then punctured the cult member right in its back, causing it to release Alyssa from its arms. The cult member who blew that stuff into Alyssa's face looked towards the direction of Jonathan, who then turned his attention towards that person at that moment. The cult member drew a knife and rushed towards him, but was met with a boot to its hand, dropping the knife in the process. Jonathan grabbed the cult member by its neck and gripped it hard. He walked the cult member towards the railing and then pushed it over as the cult member fell to its plunge on the floor below.

Brett drew his LMG and pointed towards the rest of the cult members that were left on that part of the floor.

"Stay back, assholes! Don't come any closer!" He yelled.

One cult member didn't want to cooperate, as it drew a stick of dynamite and brandished it and yelled out something as he looked to the heavens. He lit the dynamite and tried to rush towards Brett. He drew the large machine gun and squeezed the trigger and sent the cult member flying towards the rest of them and the dynamite exploded, causing all the other cult members to explode in the process.

Brett then looked towards Jonathan, who was with Alyssa trying to wake her up. She was only out for a few minutes as she regained consciousness. She woke up and noticed the two men sitting and standing near her.

"Whoa, who or what were those guys?" she said. "That was some weird shit."

"We don't know, and we don't want to know," Jonathan said. "They almost took you away. Who knows what they would have done?"

"One them tried to blow me up," Brett said.

"Let's get the hell out here," Alyssa said.

All three people got up and then were on their way out. They knew that this wouldn't be the last time that they would deal with the True Eye Cult that was in the mall at that point. They thought the zombies were a problem, but what they just faced just made things even worse for them.

For the time that was spent in the mall, they needed to keep their heads up. They had zombies to deal with, they had the cult members to deal with, and even at some points they came across other people that just lost it or were just depraved to begin with. At one point, the trio went back into the Entrance Plaza to check the door to the security room to see if it would open. They heard shots fired by a trio of snipers. A strange young photographer was seen taking pictures of them, some of them were even voyeuristic shots of Alyssa. Even when they went into the Wonderland Plaza, a morbidly obese female mall cop went towards Alyssa, as she had a gun in her hand, only for Alyssa to quickly turn around and draw her handgun, and the two men to point their guns towards the cop and told her to walk away.

Strange things had occurred for the trio before they had found refuge what was believed to be the safest place that they found: Huntin' Shack. They had little trust in anybody who was out there. They had a hard time going around Leisure Park as a trio of escaped convicts were seen roaming around in a stolen military jeep. They even questioned the safety of the gun store because zombies swarmed around the store and some even found their way inside at some points.

All three stood behind the counter, as that was the safest area in the store. The door to the store opened, which alerted Alyssa.

"Brett!" she yelled to get his attention. "Here comes another one!"

Brett saw a living being walked through the door and yelled, "Kill it!"

"Eat this!" Alyssa yelled as she drew her pistol. Brett and Jonathan drew their weapons and started firing.

The being that walked right in looked up and yelled, "Oh shit!" and quickly jumped right out the door before he could get hit by the firing rounds.

Brett then took a closer look and noticed the person moved a different way then what was seen during the course of the time that they were at the mall.

"Wait!" he said.

Jonathan and Alyssa realized that it was a person that they shot at. Jonathan looked at his friends and signaled that he would talk to the person. He approached the doorway and saw that the man was carrying a camera.

"You still breathing there, buddy?" he said.

"Are you alive?" Alyssa said as she looked towards the two men.

The man with the camera turned out to be Frank West, who was covering the outbreak.

"You've got some real balls, man," Jonathan said. "You got some business with us?"

Frank cut right to the chase, despite being nearly killed by these three gun-toting survivalists.

"There's a helicopter coming," he said. "It'll be here on Friday. I thought you might want a ride. Come with me, and you'll be out of this hell in no time."

"Where's it supposed to land?" Jonathan said with so much skepticism in his voice. "There are zombies everywhere!"

"Zombies everywhere!" Alyssa said as she jumped with some kind of odd joy.

Frank replied, "There's a heliport on the roof over in the Entrance Plaza."

Jonathan responded, "But the security door is sealed, sealed tight, a dead end. I saw it! I know what I saw!"

"Yeah!" Alyssa yelled.

"There's a duct on the roof of Paradise Plaza," Frank said. "It's a straight shot to the security room from there."

"Sounds fishy to me!" Alyssa quickly said and then jumped again.

Jonathan then turned around towards Alyssa's direction and said, "Will you shut up for once, Alyssa? We're trying to talk here."

Alyssa looked on and her odd joy somehow went away as she started to break down in tears after being told that. Jonathan turned his attention back to Frank.

"Not that I trust you completely either, man," he said. "Brett, what do you think?"

"How about some proof," Brett said.

Jonathan said, "You heard the man. Go find your duct and take a picture of it with the camera you got there, and then we can talk."

"I'm way ahead of you guys," Frank said, as he found the shot that he took of the duct in his camera and then showed it on the screen towards Jonathan. "Feast your eyes on this."

Jonathan took a closer look and noticed that the image depicted an air duct with an open door and then shifted his eyes towards Frank.

"Looks kosher to me," Jonathan said. "Brett, what do you say?"

Brett looked towards his friends, with Alyssa to his left and nodded her head towards him and then looked towards Jonathan and Frank. "Let's do this. Lead the way, man."

Brett and Alyssa climbed over the counters of the store and joined Frank as he led the way to safety. All three people were well-armed, so there was no worry that they were going to get caught up on the way back to the security room.

It didn't take long until they reached the doors that were between Crislip's Home Saloon and Pearly White's Photo. Frank immediately opened the door and the trio followed him.

However, at that moment, the same three convicts from before were still out there. The moment that they saw the four people walking in the park to get to Paradise Plaza, Sam Franklin, the driver of the stolen jeep, quickly put the car back in drive and hit the gas to go towards them. The quartet turned around noticed the escaped cons going towards them. There were two things that they could do at that moment: Either run to safety or try to fight them.

Alyssa pointed her gun towards Reginald Jenkins, the man on the turret and shot him, but it was not fatal. However, it caused him to fall off the seat, which then lured zombies to come towards him to seal his much-deserved fate. Sam continued to drive the jeep to run over the survivors. Brett then pointed his LMG to the driver and pumped some bullets into him. The bullets went through the windshield as blood sprayed on the glass and the jeep crashed into a tree with Sam's corpse jumping up and his head shattering the windshield. Miguel, the passenger, however, jumped out when he could and landed on the ground. The quartet went on their way towards the door to Paradise Plaza. He wasn't done, though, as he went to the back of the vehicle and took out the big machine gun and was ready to open fire on the living people, but then a zombie came from behind and bit, and more zombies came to him and started eating him alive.

Once they got into Paradise Plaza, more cult members were found in there. After what the trio had gone through earlier, the only thing that they could do was just shoot any of them on sight. Alyssa shot one in its torso and saw it bleeding. She was almost abducted by them earlier. The cult member was at its last breath and she then pointed her pistol right to its forehead and pulled the trigger. Jonathan poked his shotgun to the torso of a cult member and then right when he squeezed the trigger, the shell sent the cult member flying and then fell to the ground.

After that, zombies were the only thing to worry about, which weren't much of a problem by that point. They continued to follow Frank until they reached the rooftop, where they found the air duct that they were told about. The only thing that they could do was follow Frank to get inside and then found themselves inside the security room. They finally reached the safety that they needed.

Brett turned to Frank and had one thing to say, "Thank you, fearless leader. It was a hell out of a fight out there."

"Yeah!" Alyssa yelled. "So much weird shit that I can't even imagine how all this could happen."

Jonathan then sighed after what she said, but he knew that deep down that he may probably like her, but he wasn't sure. It seemed that she liked him, but it hasn't been made clear yet.

"Thanks again, we will be fine here," Jonathan said.

Frank extended his hand and shook the members' hands and was off yet again.

The trio then went into one of the rooms. They noticed that there were a lot of survivors that had been saved by that man. Some of them were sleeping as it was in the after hours when they were taken to safety. Once they got in, they sat down and took a much-needed rest.


	8. Twins' Pique

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Story about the Tompkins twins, Pamela and Heather.

In one of the rooms of the security room, two teenage girls looked at each other and looked like they had argued. The two had the exact same facial features. In fact, they were twins.

Many people stood nearby. Some kept to themselves, others interacted with each other. After all, what else was there to do in the security room? But these two girls had their attentions on each other, like something happened between them. The argument was hard to ignore, especially with the anguish that one of the sisters was suffering from. If you were in her shoes, could you blame her for being furious and feeling betrayed, especially by your own sister, too?

"Why did you leave me out there?" said Pamela, one of the twins, who was wearing a small white shirt with stripes on it and had the number 69 on the back and a cursive P on the front and showed her midriff and short shorts. "Why didn't you come and help me?"

Heather, her twin sister, wore short shorts, too, but she was wearing a skull cap that said "JUICY" on it and wore a small orange and yellow shirt that bared her midriff, which showed that she had her belly button pierced.

"Heather, I'm talking to you!" Pamela said. "Why won't you answer me?"

Heather stood there in silence but shook as she didn't know how to answer that question, especially because she left her twin sister to die in the mall, especially right before her very eyes.

Pamela looked at her sister dead in the eyes. One could not blame her for feeling the way she felt, but no one knew what the deal was.

"I…I," Heather was speechless at that moment. The fact that her own flesh and blood was confronting her about an issue was something that she had to face. What was heart-wrenching about all of this was that Pamela was right in front of her sister when the problem went down, and she was right in front of her confronting her about at that moment. The real question was what the issue was.

Heather turned around as it looked like she wanted to cry. Was it because of she was ashamed of what she did? If so, she shouldn't blame Pamela for calling her out like that.

* * *

How everything started was that the sisters stayed home alone that week, because their parents took off to take their older brother to Las Vegas for his 21st birthday. They had to make the most of their time with the house to themselves, especially because the rest of their family was out of town. They couldn't go themselves because there wasn't a lot for them to do because they were only 18 years old and fresh out of high school. They were also taking classes at a community college somewhere outside of Willamette.

The relationship between the twins would be described as a mixed bag, as they have their moments when they're on good terms, but then also have their moments of rockiness. Unfortunately, at that point, it was one of their rockiest moments.

It was sad, really, because they used to be really close when they were much younger. In fact, they liked to think that they were close, but then came the realization that they had their own differences.

Right before they graduated high school, Heather was the epitome of a typical high school queen bee, as she was a cheerleader who valued the attention of boys and wanted to be homecoming and prom queen. They were both fresh out of high school, so it was understandable that Heather maintained that mentality.

Pamela, on the other hand, was different from her sister. Despite how she was dressed, she displayed some contrast to her sister. She seemed to care more about her education and wanted to get into a good school. She was a cheerleader, too, like her sister was, but she didn't really care much about the spotlight. Unlike her sister, though, she was shy when it came to boys. Even when someone expressed interest in her, she didn't know how to handle it. It was even suspected that she was still a virgin, whereas with Heather, it was suspected that she wasn't.

It was on the weekend of September 16th, which was a Saturday. The rest of the Tompkins family had taken off for their trip to Las Vegas. Because the sisters had the house to themselves, Heather had some plans of her own.

"Hey, Travis, what are you doing?" Heather had called someone by that name. "I was wondering if you maybe can come over later. My parents took off for the weekend."

Pamela lied on a couch while she was reading a book. The moment she heard her sister say that, she immediately turned her attention away from the book. She sat up and looked directly at her sister with a minor scowl mixed with a look of confusion.

Heather turned around and locked eyes with Pamela, who shook her head.

"Listen, Travis, I'll call you back," Heather said. She closed her flip phone. "What's going on, Pamela? I know that look on your face."

"Look, Mom and Dad said that we can't have people over at the house while they're gone," Pamela said. "You promised that we won't do that."

"Oh, come on, sis, it's not like we're going to have a party or some shit like that," Heather said. "Why do you have to be such a buzzkill? You need to lighten up."

Pamela sighed at that comment. While her sister had a point about how she needed to lighten up at times, Pamela also saw that her twin needed to abide by the rules. Also, the question on her mind was, "Okay, who is this Travis guy?"

"Oh, he's a cute guy who I met in one of my classes," Heather said. "I had been talking to him and thought maybe we should get together."

"Heather, you barely know him," Pamela said. "There is a reason why Mom came to me to keep an eye on you as well. I am trying to look out for you. You're my sister and I love you, but as your sister, you really don't make the best choices sometimes."

"Oh shut up, Pamela," Heather said. "We used to do a lot together, but then suddenly, everything changed between us. I tried setting up double dates for us, but you just weren't going along with that one guy who liked you."

"That's because he probably thought I was you or something," Pamela said. "Besides, I saw the way he looked at me. He looked at me up and down. It made me uncomfortable."

Heather sighed at that comment. She sometimes didn't understand her sister. Maybe it was because they went through different paths in high school, at least maybe midway through junior year. They were only 18, so the teenage mentality was still there, at least with Heather. She wondered how her own sister can be so different than her.

"I don't know what's with you these days," Heather said. "Sometimes I wonder how we're sisters. We used to be two of a kind. What happened to you?"

In Pamela's case, she felt like she was more mature than her sister. While her twin had a point that she should lighten up and try to get out of her shell, she then realized that she was growing apart from her sister, if it wasn't obvious already. Why else would their mother turn to Pamela to keep an eye on Heather, not the other way around?

Pamela said, "Listen, I care about you and I don't want you to be hurt by this guy. For all I know, he probably wants to have sex with you or something. I know things have been strained between us, but we still have each other."

At least Heather was able to see that her sister showed that she cared about her, even if their relationship has gotten rockier as time went on. But the real question was did she feel that way about her own twin sister? Did she see that Pamela was right about her behavior? Why didn't she want to listen to her?

* * *

For the next few days, they had their ups and they had their downs. Pamela had looked at pictures of her and Heather from when they were younger. She often asked herself why things changed between them. It wasn't just Heather who felt that way, but also Pamela felt that way. She was fine with wanting to go a different path, but she could have maintained the bond that she had with her twin. Not to say that Pamela or Heather didn't have a good relationship with their older brother, but the twins had a special bond with each other. If only certain things wouldn't get worse within those days, and it had little to do with their relationship at that moment.

It then reached the point where at the start of the week when Pamela woke up one day and she was all alone at home. Last time she checked, Heather was asleep when Pamela went to bed the previous night, but for some reason, Heather was gone. Where could she have gone?

It was only Tuesday the 19th. For some reason, they couldn't go anywhere because of some stuff that had happened that caused the bridges to be blocked off. But what was the problem? Why was the town of Willamette being quarantined?

Pamela took a shower and got dressed for the day. She found that top with the P and the number 69 on the back and a pair of short shorts. It was around 9 in the morning and she took a glance through her bedroom window and noticed something irregular happening. A man was seen running, but it didn't look like that person was out getting exercise. It looked he was running for his life, but from what? Then Pamela's phone rang.

"Hey, Mom," Pamela said. "Oh, things are okay around here. I don't know where Heather went. She was gone when I woke up. She should be back soon. I'll call her."

Then she looked out the window again. That same man was lying on the ground and looking straight in his direction and saw what appeared to be a walking cadaver walking towards him.

_What the hell?_ She thought. The zombie had approached the man and he started screaming as the zombie crawled on top of him and started biting his flesh. Pamela's jaw dropped and her eyes widened and lost focus to what her mother was saying.

"Mom, I'm going to have to call you back," Pamela said. "Something had come up. Bye." She immediately dialed a certain number on the keypad, as there was no time to search through the contacts.

You better pick up. She thought. The phone kept ringing until someone had picked up.

"Heather?" Pamela said.

"Pamela, what's going on? What do you want?" Heather said.

"Where are you?" Pamela said.

"Why? Why are you checking on me?" Heather said.

"This is serious," Pamela said. "Do you see anything weird going on?"

"What do you mean?" Heather said.

"Never mind," Pamela said and then hung up.

Pamela didn't want to waste any time. She had an idea where her twin sister was. She also had an idea who she was with. There was nothing to do except grab the keys to the car and find her twin sister.

The moment she stepped outside of her house, she noticed that a few more zombies had come to her neighborhood. One of her neighbors, an overweight, balding male who was wearing a green hoodie ran for his life. Some other people were running, too. It was as if a horror movie had come to life.

She went right into the driver's seat and stuck the key inside the ignition and set it to drive. She drove quickly to find her sister.

Meanwhile, Heather was out with a young man, who had blonde hair and wore a plaid button-down shirt. He also appeared to be a few years older than her, enough that he brought some alcohol with him. Little did she know that the guy had a bee sting on the back of his neck. If only they both knew what kind of bee it was.

"So, who was that you were on the phone with?" the young man said.

"Oh, that was just my sister," Heather said. "Don't worry. She's not going to do anything."

But she couldn't have been more wrong. Pamela had taken the car to go get her twin sister. She may not currently have the best relationship with her, but she was all who she had at that moment. The rest of her family was out of town, and she'll be damned if one of them were to die as what appeared to be a zombie outbreak had commenced.

She went into the outskirts, as they weren't far out of town. She went on the road and found a dirt path. She knew her sister well, as she followed the exact directions on where she could be. It didn't take long until she saw a car on top of a hill that overlooked the town of Willamette, where a blonde guy and a brunette girl were standing.

_There they are._ Pamela thought. While she sat there, she looked right at Heather and the guy. She knew that Heather was boy crazy. She knew she didn't always make the best choices. It was a definite sign that the two grew apart, but they were still sisters and that deep down, Pamela did care about her, but there was a sign that she felt that her own sister just didn't like her. Why was it like that?

No matter as Pamela wasted little time in getting out of the car. She walked quickly and yelled out "Heather!"

Just by hearing her name, Heather had turned her attention towards her sister, as did Travis.

"Oh great, not this shit," Heather muttered.

"Is that your sister?" Travis said. "She looks just like you."

"We're twins," she said. "Listen, I'll be back."

Heather walked towards her sister. "What do you want?"

"We're going home right now," Pamela said. "We need to get out of here."

"Why?" Heather said.

"I saw some weird shit happening in our neighborhood," Pamela said. "We need to get the hell out of here."

"What are you talking about?" Heather said.

From a distance, Travis started to twitch a bit. He put his right hand towards the wound from the sting and started to twitch some more. While Heather confronted her sister, Pamela's eyes shifted and noticed the odd behavior that Travis exhibited.

"Um, Heather, you have to look at this," she said. Heather turned around and right at that point, Travis had puked blood of his system and once he put his head up, veins started popping of his flesh as it had gotten paler and even from a distance, his eyes didn't look the same anymore.

"Oh my god," Heather said.

"We need to get out of here, come on," Pamela said.

Heather and Pamela quickly got into the car. Pamela started it up and put it in reverse and hit the gas as she tried to quickly get out of there.

"What the hell was that?!" Heather said.

"I don't know, but whatever it was, I've never seen anything like this in real life," Pamela said.

She sped through the roads. At that point, more of the undead had been out in the open. The only thing that she wanted to do was go back home and try to be safe, and then pack up things to get out of town until everything blows over.

When Pamela and Heather had gotten back to the house, the streets were already swarming with zombies. Some of them even surrounded their house.

"Oh no," Pamela said. "What are going to do now?"

If they thought that was bad, it was only about to get worse.

In other news, the town of Willamette has now blocked off any exits as the National Guard is blocking off all the roads. So for anybody in Willamette, lock your doors, keep yourself inside safe from all the zombies.

What other options did they have at that moment? There was one place that had a lot of room and could keep them entertained and had food if they needed it.

"Come on, sis," Heather said. "I know somewhere we can go."

The destination that they chose wasn't exactly the best choice, but there was a lot of room and a lot to do. Also, was there any sign that any survivors would evacuate out of there? There had to be somewhere that they could go.

It was still before 11 in the morning, as once they had arrived to the Willamette Parkview Mall. Pamela parked the car and within a minute, the two exited the car and raced to the front entrance to the mall.

When they walked in, some people also had the same idea of retreating to this enormous shopping center. The sisters looked around and saw some people standing and sitting around. Pamela was initially iffy of the idea of going to a mall for refuge, but after hearing the news report that roads were blocked off, there was no other choice.

They went to check out other areas of the mall, at least until the gate that shut off half of the Entrance Plaza. Once it was closed, the gate to Paradise Plaza was also locked off. For some reason, they were able to get out into Al Fresca Plaza. While Pamela looked around to see how everything was, Heather used that time to go into Brand New U.

"Heather, this is not the time," Pamela said.

"Oh, come on, we're here, aren't we?" Heather turned and then quickly went into the store, much to the chagrin of her sister. Pamela sighed, as she knew that Heather loved to shop and with no clerks around, it was anything goes. At that moment, survival was the only thing on her mind, especially when having to look after her immature sister.

However, they had to expedite their survival, as it wasn't long until more zombies started to come into the mall and into the outside of the mall. Pamela looked over and saw that these two guys who were hanging out by the fountain started running. One of the guys ran into Weber's Garments, while the guy's friend held off some of them. The sisters then quickly ran as a horde started coming towards them. They quickly ran to the food court, where a strange looking man was sitting at the top of the food court sign.

"I don't like the looks of that guy," Heather said.

"Let's go somewhere else," Pamela said. It was either go into Wonderland Plaza or to Leisure Park. They couldn't go back to Al Fresca Plaza, as Pamela and Heather noticed a man get eaten alive as he was trying to ask some people inside a store if he could come in.

They had to make the most of it, there couldn't be any zombies in Wonderland Plaza at that point, could there? They went into that section of the mall. With that major playground area, as well as the giant rat looking thing by the window, it was empty for the time being. Some people were seen around, like a clown with two chainsaws slashing zombies. Wait, zombies? It wasn't as much, yet.

But then more starting coming in, as the clown tried to take out more of the living dead. On any other day, Heather and Pamela would try going into the Lovely Fashion House or even Estelle's Fine Lady Cosmetics, but this wasn't that day. The clown then saw them and then jumped high and once he landed in front of them, he struck a pose. He was really agile and nimble despite his size.

"Aw," he said in a creepily high-sounding voice. "Don't you just love laughter?" He then started to juggle the chainsaws in his hands. "People used to laugh at me. I used to be so funny, and then this happened."

The sisters looked at him with unease and slowly backed away from him. As more zombies were coming towards him, he took the two chainsaws and spun around and slashed them in the process. Then they headed to the other side on the staircase right by that inflatable rat. Then as soon as they went upstairs, they noticed something just as terrifying, if not more. A morbidly obese female mall cop was seen beating a young woman with her nightstick and then kicking her while she was down and then threw her right into a store. The cop then looked up and saw the twins. She got closer and started to look them up and down in a creepy way.

"Hey, you skanks! Get over here!" the cop said.

Pamela started to shiver, as did Heather, but the only thing they could do was run at that moment. They did not stop until they reached the doorway to the food court. They continued to run until they got the doors to Leisure Park. At that point, an African-American man with a yellow shirt and tie was on his way there. They didn't make eye contact; all they wanted to do was find another safe area.

They had to stop running to catch their breath. Pamela shook at the clown, but even more at the cop. Heather had bent over and huffed and puffed.

"We should have helped that poor girl getting beaten," Pamela said.

"That fat cop was three times our size," Heather said. "We wouldn't have a chance."

"I felt bad for her, though," Pamela said. "We should at least try helping others."

"Listen, sis, it's either us or them," Heather said. "I know we haven't gotten along lately, but we have each other right now."

She had a point, but the question was if she really meant what she said. Hours before, she didn't want to listen to Pamela. With the undead now increasing in the mall, what else could they do?

"If I get caught up, you come for me," Heather said. "If you get caught up, I will come for you."

"Got it, we're going to make it, sis," Pamela said.

For the rest of the day, they spent a lot of time in Paradise Plaza. As far as they were concerned, it was the safest area that they could find. They saw some familiar faces, as Willamette was not a big town. When they went into Lady About Town, Pamela and Heather saw a high school classmate of theirs named Simone. Pamela had talked to her, who looked like she had experienced something tragic. She was a good friend to her, even though they hadn't talked much prior to it. Heather, on the other hand, was just looking at clothes and purses, like she didn't really worry about the undead.

One of the good things about being in Paradise Plaza was that there was a restaurant in that section that they could get food from. They had to find a place to crash at some point, though. Unbeknownst to them, a strange photographer was in the area and taking some lecherous pictures of them, especially close-ups of other parts of their anatomies.

It was now the next day. They had crashed inside Ye Old Toybox and when they woke up, the number of zombies had increased. A young woman was seen running, but she turned around to face them and then ran inside the store to hide. Heather, barely awake, noticed her as she looked familiar to her.

"Ms. Gorman," she said. "Is that you?"

The woman turned around and saw Heather, and Pamela started getting up at that point, too.

"Heather? Pamela? What a surprise!" she said.

Pamela opened her eyes and then said, "Ms. Gorman?"

Jennifer Gorman was a teacher of theirs at their old high school. She was one of the younger teachers there as she was only in her mid-20s. She put her right index finger to her mouth for the girls to keep quiet. She looked outside the toy store to see if anybody was nearby.

"What's going on?" Pamela said.

"I am running from these strange people," Jennifer said. "I came across these weird guys in yellow raincoats and green masks. I think they're a cult or something."

She then took a quick glance outside to check if the coast was clear.

"Listen, it was great running into you two," Jennifer said. "I would stay here and talk, but those guys are after me. If you see them, just run, okay?"

The twins nodded their heads. The woman then walked out of the story as the twins watched.

"I liked her, she was my favorite teacher," Pamela said.

"I didn't, she almost failed me," Heather said.

Pamela looked to her sister and said, "If you had put more effort into school, then she wouldn't have been hard on you."

"You always were a bit of a teacher's pet," Heather said.

"Let's not go through this again," Pamela said. "We're trying to survive here. Listen, you go one way, and I'll go another."

Heather nodded her head.

The sisters had exited the store. More zombies kept coming from the main part of the mall. Heather ran towards the hallway between Cantonbury's and Bachman's Bookporium. Pamela ran towards the southern-most staircase by Sportrance. It was either braving the horde that was swarming by the staircase next to Tykes N Tots or breaking towards the other staircase by the planter near Sportrance.

Heather had to pick between two options: Child's Play or Players. She picked Child's play and ran right along the bridge. Pamela saw her sister get into the store and headed in that direction, but then tripped and fell into the moat. She got up and noticed a large horde of zombies in the water. She shook and backed away, but before she could get out, the zombies surrounded her.

"HELP!" Pamela yelled as she saw Heather standing inside the store. She started banging on the window. "PLEASE! HELP ME!"

More zombies closed in on her. "HEATHER! HELP! PLEASE, HELP ME!"

Heather looked on and backed up as she saw her twin sister bang on the window begging for her help as she was really close to death at that moment. She then started to cry and turned around as she didn't want to see what was about to happen. The real question was why wasn't she at least making an attempt to save her sister.

Zombies closed in Pamela as they were about to grab her. Then she noticed some blood splattering and heads exploding as the now-dead bodies fell right into the water.

"Oh my god," Pamela said with so much relief. To her right, a man with a camera came up to her. It wasn't just any man, though. It was Frank West.

"It's too dangerous here, kiddo," Frank said. "I'll take you somewhere safer."

"Thank you so much!" Pamela said as she took a deep breath. "I would have been a goner without you."

She got out of the moat and then looked right at her own sister with a scowl. She wasn't just angry at her right there. She felt betrayed. Frank then looked in the store and noticed that the crying girl looked just like the girl he saved. He didn't have to ask as he figured that they were sisters.

Heather looked up and saw that her sister had barely survived.

Frank said, "Hey, go to that door over there." He pointed directly at the warehouse door. Pamela ran towards it.

Frank went inside Child's Play and walked towards the girl, who was still crying.

She looked up and noticed the same man who talked to Pamela and then jumped.

"Please forgive me! It's not my fault!" Heather said. "I mean there was no other way! If we'd stuck together, we'd both be dead by now."

Frank looked at her a certain way and shook his head. It was obvious to him that she didn't want to accept responsibility for leaving her sister to die.

"What?" Heather said and then shook and covered her eyes. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Don't get your panties in a bunch!" Frank replied. "Promise to keep your mouth shut for a bit and I'll take you some place safe."

Heather looked up right at him, "A safe place?"

"Yeah, I've got a helicopter coming Friday," Frank said.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go!" Heather said. She followed Frank to the warehouse door and noticed that Pamela was looking at her a certain way. Heather looked away as she did not want to face her twin.

Pamela closed in towards her and said, "You and I are going to have a long talk about this."

Heather shook and felt a chill in her body when she was told that. It wasn't like she didn't deserve it.

Frank led the way for the two young girls to get to the security room. Heather didn't want to look at anybody at that moment. Not to mention she was grossed out by how dirty the warehouse was. If that wasn't bad enough, she had to crawl through an air-duct after that.

Once they were home free, they were relieved.

Pamela turned towards Frank and said, "I was really scared at first, but now I'm just glad I got to meet a nice guy like you."

Heather wasn't as thankful, though. "Ewwww, this place sucks. It's dirty, it's cramped, is there not a shower around here?"

Frank and Pamela looked towards her with an expression of "What the hell? That's all she cares about?"

Pamela mouthed "Thank you" to Frank and noticed Heather walking away but she followed her, as she had a major bone to pick with her.

* * *

They had a long argument about what happened. After a while, Heather understood why her sister was upset with her.

"Why did you do it?!" Pamela yelled as a tear started to trickle from her eye. "Why did you leave me to almost get eaten?!"

"I…I don't know!" Heather said.

"You said you would help me if I got up caught up in a jam," Pamela said. "If it was you, I would do the same thing. But you didn't do anything for me."

Heather looked down. Other people in that room noticed how she was feeling, from Sophie to Burt and Aaron. It almost seemed like she was embarrassed that Pamela was letting her have it in front of people, especially being that she did something terrible. She knew that their relationship had gotten rocky, but she also knew that in spite of it, Pamela would still do anything for her.

"Why didn't you do anything for me? I saved you from that guy who turned into a zombie," Pamela said. "I was almost killed!"

"I am so sorry for leaving you out there," Heather broke down at that point. "I was also frozen stiff, like I couldn't do anything. I know I'm a bitch, I know I don't make the best choices. I feel like a terrible person right now and this was entirely my fault. If you don't want to talk to me, I understand."

Pamela started to feel for her right then. "Heather, look at me."

She made eye contact with her twin, who raised her hand and then slapped her in the face. She didn't want to look at Pamela for that.

"I deserve that, I really do," Heather said.

However, Pamela went to her sister and when they made eye contact again, Pamela wrapped her arms around Heather and hugged her. What also separated the two was that Pamela was compassionate. She had every right to be angry at her sister. Even though they have been having their differences lately, they will always be sisters.

"Listen, if we go through something like that again, promise that you will help me," Pamela said. "If it was you in that moat, I would have gone back out there and helped you."

Heather nodded her head in agreement. "I love you, Pamela."

"I love you, too, Heather," Pamela said. "Let's never fight again."


	9. Getting Out of Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Greg Simpson investigates and tries to survive the outbreak.

On Tuesday September 19th, the day had been felt like a ghost town, with the only sounds that were heard were the agonizing screams of people either running for their lives or getting eaten alive. The most puzzling thing about that day was that Greg Simpson, a maintenance employee at the Willamette Parkview Mall, had come into work like any other day.

He had already been working for hours when he, along with two fellow janitors, Otis Washington and Freddie May, had been doing the graveyard shift. If only they knew that the mall would become a graveyard in and of itself.

Early in the day, in fact, that same morning, Otis and Greg had scoped out the Entrance Plaza. Freddie took off to go check out the other parts of the mall. Two young men had been let out of Sports High after staying in that store overnight. Otis and Greg had little-to-no knowledge of what had been going outside of the mall until they were informed by what appeared to be the more level-headed one of the two young men. He was wearing a skull cap and a long-sleeved orange button-down shirt. The other young man was just scared as he did little talking with the two blue-jacket-clad janitors.

Both men were confused at what was going on at after one of the young men had told them something. Greg opted to go check out other parts of the mall, while the elderly member of the Willamette Patrol stayed and looked around various parts of the Entrance Plaza.

Greg had gone out into the Al Fresca Plaza. The outdoor part of the mall was spotless as well, save for some food being found on the counters of Hamburger Fiefdom and Colombian Roastmasters. Suddenly, a sound was heard. He had reached for what appeared to be a walkie-talkie. "Hey, what's up?"

"Greg, this is Otis, did you find anything?" Otis said.

"Nah, I haven't seen anything," Greg said. "It looks pretty quiet around here. I mean, I know it's still early, but maybe those guys might be on something."

"What you think they're high or something?" Otis said. "It didn't sound like they were lying."

"I didn't mean it that way," Greg said. "I meant to say that might be on_to_ something. I'm in the Al Fresca Plaza right now."

As Greg was walking, a door had opened from up ahead and to the left. The door happened to be in between Riverfield Jewelry and Flexin', the gym in the mall. The man was wearing the exact same type of jacket that he, Otis, and Freddie were wearing, except he had a yellow hardhat on. He tripped and fell forward onto the concrete.

"What on earth?" Greg slowly walked and tilted his had a tad and then moved it forward to take a closer look. "Pete, is that you?"

The man heard his name and looked to his right. "Greg, it's just you."

"Yes, it's me," he said. "What's going on?"

Pete said, "I was just in the tunnel having a cigarette, but I looked up and saw

some… _things_ down there."

"What kind of 'things'?"

"They only looked like people, but they didn't seem like people!" Pete yelled.

Greg looked at him and shifted his eyes down the man's legs and saw blood coming out Pete's right calf.

"What happened to you?" Greg said.

"One of those _things_ bit me!" Pete said.

Greg took a closer look and saw that what was on Pete's leg appeared to be a bite mark. Could those guys have been telling the truth from earlier? There was only one way to find out. Greg looked up towards the door and walked towards it.

"Don't go down there! I'm telling you right now!" Pete said.

"I have to see what's going on," Greg said. "Don't worry about me."

He opened the door and noticed that the stairwell was a bit empty. Out of the corner of his right eye, he noticed what looked like a young man trip and fall onto the stairs below.

"Hello? Are you okay?" Greg said. He slowly walked down the stairs. As he got closer, the person looked up and snarled and growled.

"Holy shit! What the-?" Greg yelled and got out his flashlight and turned it on. The person's skin looked decayed and there was blood drooling from its mouth and was looking right at him. He panted a bit and then turned around to start running up the stairs and opened the door into the Al Fresca Plaza and quickly slammed the door. Pete was still lying there.

"We have to get you some help right now," Greg said.

"I don't think that will do me any good," Pete said.

"We have to stop the bleeding somehow," Greg said, little did he know was that there was another bite mark on his left arm. He barely noticed it.

"You're bleeding on your arm, too," Greg said.

"Like I said, getting help won't do me any good," Pete said. "Just leave me here. I've seen movies with those things in them. I will be one of them soon."

Greg looked down towards him and then noticed that he started to shake. Red liquid had emerged from his face. Oddly enough, Pete started to ascend from the ground and Greg backed away a tad. Pete's head shook one way and then another and then shook some more. After a few more shakes, he raised his arms a bit and then started to hiss and snarl.

The only thing that Greg could do was run away, but where was the real question. He could try bolting towards the food court, which was close by. Maybe keep going until he got to Wonderland Plaza or even go to Leisure Park. Wherever he would go, he would have to just find safety. It could only mean that the number of zombies would increase over time, if they find their way into the mall.

He picked up his transceiver. "Hey, Otis, I saw something crazy. I'm heading back. Where are you?"

Otis replied, "I am still in the Entrance Plaza. Freddie came back. What's going on?"

"I'll tell you when I get there," Greg said and then put down his walkie-talkie.

He ran as fast as he could until he passed the mini-food court that surrounded the fountain in Al Fresca Plaza and then opened the doors to the Entrance Plaza. He kept running and running until he met up with two men who wore similar blue jackets with "Willamette" written on it in yellow letters.

Otis, the elderly black man looked up and said, "Damn, Greg. What's going on with you? You look like you saw a ghost."

"Yeah, what did you see out there?" Freddie, the bespectacled Caucasian janitor said.

"It was Pete," Greg said. "He turned into a zombie. Those two guys weren't bullshitting us earlier."

"Zombies?" Freddie said.

Otis then looked at both men. "Freddie, you didn't know about this?"

"I took off to go look at the Paradise Plaza," Freddie said. "I wasn't aware of this."

"Pete told me that there are more down in the maintenance tunnel," Greg said. "I went down and saw a zombie come after me and then I saw Pete turn into one."

From a distance, a sound was heard right at the doors that separated the Entrance Plaza and Al Fresca Plaza. It was the infected Pete. The three men looked over there.

"You didn't kill him?" Otis said.

"I took off running, I didn't know what to do," Greg said.

The trio slowly walked closer towards the door as they saw that Pete as a walking corpse had pressed its face and hands against the door.

But out of the blue, an African-American man in a yellow long-sleeved shirt and khakis shot the zombified Pete from behind with a pistol and then looked at the zombie to make sure it wouldn't move anymore. The man had waved at the janitors, while they did the same thing, confused and shocked what they just saw.

Otis said, "As long as stay out of the maintenance tunnel and in the mall at all costs, we should be safe here."

"You got that right," Greg said, while Freddie nodded his head.

* * *

**Hours later**

As the day progressed, more people started coming to the mall with the exact same idea: safety. The mall was big and had stuff for people to do. It wasn't like there was much choice in the matter. The National Guard had only gotten word about an alleged riot taking place in the town of Willamette and the citizens couldn't get out of town if they tried.

Otis went to go check out the security room to see what was up, while Freddie stayed behind to help people try barricading the doors.

Greg, on the other hand, took off to scope out various parts of the mall to see if any other zombies had found their way in.

At that point, he had gone to Paradise Plaza to see what was going on. It seemed clear enough, but as he was looking around, it looked like some zombies were coming in through the doorway to the Entrance Plaza. How they got in was anyone's guess, as there was that gate that was lowered to divide the other half of that section.

_Shit! What the hell happened?_ He thought. Despite a lot of zombies coming in and going after some other people that happened to be around, like security guards and whatnot, he had to figure out something to do.

Got it! Right beside the hallway that divided the Entrance Plaza and Paradise Plaza were a couple of buttons. He raced towards that area, even though several zombies had made their way into that part of the mall. He raced towards the buttons that were right past Shoekins and pushed the red button and then saw the gate lower. Though many zombies have found their way into Paradise Plaza, it was going to prevent the number from increasing, at least for the time being.

At this point, he can't go back to the Entrance Plaza, unless he were to open that gate, but he didn't want to do that. He walked alongside the planters and the little stream that was on the western part of the section, right close to the windows. He walked towards the doors to Leisure Park that was right next to Jill's Sandwiches, but it was crowded with zombies.

He had to find a way to get around and he knew just the way to get to another section of the mall. He ran eastbound from that area and towards the restrooms. It wasn't because he needed to go to the bathroom either. He went right into one place that men were never allowed to enter: the women's restroom. There was no one around to give him any grief about it, as he climbed right onto the sink counter and opened the ventilation duct and entered.

He found himself in the women's restroom in Wonderland Plaza. When he got out, he looked around to find any suspicious behavior. But he wasn't going to start in Wonderland Plaza, as he headed northbound as he passed that jewelry stand in that was right in front of the restrooms. It hadn't been long since had split from Otis and Freddie. Last time he checked, those two were still in the entrance area, with Freddie helping out some civilians barricade the door, while Otis checked out the security room and scoped out other parts of that section of the mall.

He headed north as he walked past that giant rabbit that was in between the two staircases to go towards the North Plaza, an unfinished part of the shopping center with only a few businesses that were finished and operating.

Right through his eyes he saw that some of the construction workers that were working on the other parts of that section started moving slowly and others started tweaking. Maybe something was affecting other parts of the mall. It couldn't have been someone coming from the maintenance tunnel, as in that section, the only way to access the tunnel was through Seon's Food and Stuff.

But more of whoever was in there started to get affected. Something was definitely amiss here. Greg had gotten out his flashlight. He lit it up. Despite there being light down the hallway, he had to ensure something was not right. The light hit one of the construction workers, as well as any security guards walking around. They looked decayed like other zombies from before. The North Plaza was a little far from Paradise Plaza and a little further from the Entrance Plaza. Then he saw something flying around. It looked like an insect, like a wasp or a bee.

_What the hell is going on here?_ He turned around and headed southbound to Wonderland Plaza again. It took some time to get around, but even at that point, zombies had come in. How was anyone's guess, but it appeared that zombies started coming out of the woodwork.

If that wasn't bad enough, a zombie tried to come to him right in front of him. Then another tried to attack him from behind. Until he saw the zombie that was in front of him drop facedown. He took a closer look and saw that a knife was stuck to its back. He turned around and saw blood gushing out of that zombie as it was being dismembered by what appeared to be a clown holding a small chainsaw.

"Ah! Don't be afraid, sir!" the clown said in a rather high-pitched voice. "I will keep all these zombies away from you, then we'll have fun! HA HA HA!"

The sights of what he had just witnessed were too much to bear, as Greg's eyes rolled backwards, as he fell in the same motion. Lucky for him, the clown quickly moved and grabbed him before he could hit the floor. The clown picked him up to carry him, but his transceiver had fallen from his pants.

* * *

**Hours later**

Evening had fallen and Greg's eyes had opened. He looked around and saw that he was seated on something. He tried to move up from the seat, only to see that he was restrained. He barely realized what he was sitting in. He was sitting in the Space Rider, the little roller coaster in the middle of Wonderland Plaza.

"Oh, don't you worry!" a high-pitched voice said. Greg turned his attention to his left and saw the same clown from before. "I'm going to take you for a ride! You are going to have so much fun!"

"Huh? What?" Greg said. But before he could say anything else, the rollercoaster cart took off rather quickly.

Greg yelled and yelled, but it was no use to him. The rollercoaster went at a really high speed. He looked around but everything was so blurry that he couldn't make out anything. He couldn't count how many times he had gone around the mall at that point. It was too fast. Who knows if he would suffer dizziness or motion sickness?

But fate seemed to have been listening, as the Space Rider had come to a stop after a while and had gotten out of the cart and saw a man with a camera standing at the control stand. Even more puzzling was that he saw the body of the same clown from before laid out in a pool of his own blood. The man with the camera, Frank, saw him get out. Greg slowly walked before he could tumble, but the photographer caught him.

"Thanks! I was in some real trouble there," Greg said. "Are there any other survivors around?"

Frank replied, "There sure are. Everyone's in the security room. It's safe there."

"The security room?" Greg wondered why he didn't just go over there to begin with, but he made it this far. "I know a shortcut there. Follow me."

Greg ran down the stairs of the Space Rider. He made sure he walked around the clown's body and the blood, of course. However, as he ran, he saw a large horde of zombies swarming in front of Kokonutz Sports Town and Contemporary Purses. Frank followed his lead and then picked up one of the small chainsaws to take down a few zombies to clear the way for Greg, who was giving him the "come on" gesture.

Frank continued to follow Greg until they reached the women's restroom.

"This way, come on!" Greg said and gave him that hand gesture again.

When Frank walked in, Greg stood right in front of the sinks and the mirror and looked right up at the ceiling, where an air-duct was.

"Just head through there and we'll head right into Paradise Plaza, nice shortcut, huh?" Greg said. "That's as far as I can take you. You're on your own from here on out."

"Great," Frank said. "Don't worry about me, but I think we should get back to the security room."

"Okay, let's go," Greg said.

The two went right through the special passage to get to base. It was already getting late and the mall was swarming with more zombies than ever before. But Greg had picked up the other small chainsaw from the dead clown. Now what was more important was getting to safety.

It wasn't long until they were home free, or at least Greg was home free. After passing through the warehouse to get to the elevator and crawling through the air-duct to get inside the security room, the first person he saw was Otis right outside the duct.

"Otis?" Greg said.

"Greg?" Otis said.

"You're okay! Thank god!" Greg said.

"Yeah, where have you been?" Otis said.

"I went through some crazy stuff," Greg said and then looked to Frank. "Thanks for saving me back there."

"No problem," Frank said and then went back out into the outbreak.

Greg turned towards Otis, "Hey, is Freddie okay?"

Otis jumped a tad when he heard Greg say that. He took a deep breath.

"Freddie didn't make it," Otis said. "Zombies started coming in after some crazy old lady opened the doors and let them in."

Greg turned his attention away and looked down a bit. He took a deep breath. It appeared that another member of their little group had perished in the outbreak. It was sad, but they were going to not let it bother them, as more things were at stake at that point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're wondering, Freddie was one of the victims at the start of the game. He wore the same type of jacket that Otis and Greg wore. In that chapter I wrote about Burt and Aaron, I felt like I left him out when I had Otis and Greg scope out that part of the mall. So I wrote where he could have been.
> 
> I plan to do more soon. I have other ideas for other survivors. I might even do some on psychopaths. Maybe I might touch on psychos for my DR2 anthology as well.
> 
> One more thing, the title was kind of a play on the mission title, "Out of Control," the same one where you encounter Adam (and save Greg, too), and also that the outbreak was starting to get out of control.


	10. The Woman Who Didn't Make It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jolie Wu and Rachel Decker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been so long since I last updated this. With the recent buzz about the coronavirus, I think I will be writing more for the time being. This is something that I wanted to cover for a while. I think I will do more for this one, as I have had other ideas for a while to do for this one. Hope you enjoy it!

It was September 20th. Jolie Wu lied on the floor inside Gramma's Kids, a children's clothing store in the Entrance Plaza, wondering what could have happened to her friend Rachel Decker.

She cried. She couldn't believe she just left her friend behind like that to die. She didn't want to do it, but what just happened to her, or what _almost_ happened to her, so many chills ran through her veins.

The two had spent a good amount of time evading and avoiding zombies at the Willamette Parkview Mall, among others who used that place to take refuge from the undead. They were successful as they had lasted for at least nearly a couple of days until they came across some other threats.

* * *

"Come on, Jolie." Said Rachel, a young Caucasian woman who had light brown hair in a ponytail. She wore a black turtleneck sweater with blue jeans and black shoes.

"Where are we going?" Jolie said. Jolie was a young Chinese woman who wore a beige vest over a black long-sleeve shirt, as well as brown jeans and black sneakers.

Rachel and Jolie were all the way in the front end of the second floor of the Entrance Plaza. They were close to the security room door. They walked through the hallway. Oddly enough, it was empty, but can zombies get inside? Do they even know how to open a door?

"We're trying to find some place safe, remember?" Rachel said. She faced the door right in front of her. She gripped the doorknob and tried to twist it. "What the hell?"

"What's wrong?" Jolie stood right against the wall.

"The door, it won't open!" Rachel said.

"Maybe it's locked," Jolie said.

Rachel tried to twist the knob. Though the knob twisted a bit, but the door wouldn't budge.

"I can't open it," Rachel said. She then tried to knock on the door. "Come on, let us in!" She yelled. It was no use.

"Shit, we can't get in," Rachel said. "We have to find a place."

"But where will that be?" Jolie said as stood away from the way at this point. "Everywhere we go, there will either be zombies or those weird people in those yellow raincoats. They tried to capture us, remember?"

"I know," Rachel said. "But we have to try, right? What choice do we have?"

Jolie looked right to the floor and then directly at her friend. There was little choice in the matter. They made it this far, there's no turning back now. Out of the two, Jolie was even more scared. Not to say Rachel wasn't, but Jolie was still shaken from having been grabbed by those cult members. One of them even had a knife right to neck. Rachel wanted to help. She even tried to fight one of them off, but then another one grabbed her and tried to take her away.

What saved both of them, however, were gunshots from up above. They didn't know where those shots came from, but the two friends saw that the cult members let them ago. In that very moment, they ran off.

But it wasn't time to reminisce. It was time to look for somewhere to hide.

"You're right, let's go," Jolie said.

Rachel walked away from the door and headed down the hallway to get to the door to the Entrance Plaza. Jolie walked right behind her. It was going to be harder from here on in. After a few days, several zombies had managed to get inside the mall. But they managed to make it through without getting infected with the virus.

The door slowly opened as Rachel peered a bit into the Entrance Plaza.

"What's going on?" Jolie said as she stood behind Rachel.

Rachel slowly poked her head through the crack in the door. Several bodies of zombies were laid out right in front of Jamming Juvenile, as well as near Robsaka Digital.

"Looks safe to me," Rachel said. She slowly opened the door and made a baby step with her left foot as she hung onto the door a bit. It wasn't long until she got out completely. Jolie creeped a bit behind her and quickly turned her head to her left and to her right. She saw that a lot of zombies were laid out on the ground.

"Are we safe?" Jolie said.

"I don't know," Rachel said. "But I have a feeling that someone could have killed them."

They slowly walked through Robsaka Digital. Rachel led the way. The two friends walked right past the display of Wendy's new album, "Love Spurred" and the cardboard cutout of the singer. Rachel then went to a complete stop when she saw what looked like three live men with rifles. They were standing close to Ned's Knicknackery. Jolie was a little far behind her but when she saw her friend stop, she ducked behind a counter with a TV display and a cardboard of Ticky the Fox.

"Why did you stop?" Jolie said. "What do you see?"

Rachel peeked out from the corner. The three men she saw, the oldest one had grayish brown hair, wore glasses, and wore a red vest over a long-sleeve button-down shirt. The other two were much younger, as one of them had an orange skull cap and a blue vest, while the other wore glasses with a green jacket and a blue hat. They were all talking, but Rachel couldn't hear them.

"I think I saw who saved us," Rachel said.

Jolie crawled from behind the counter and then knelt up a tad. She noticed the three guys as well.

"Should we go thank them?" Jolie said.

Rachel peered out a little more. "I don't know. I don't think we should."

"Why not?" Jolie said.

The more Rachel looked on, the more she saw that the older man was talking to the youngest man a certain way. The older man kept on turned his head and pointing a finger in different directions. It almost looked like he was berating that young man. Come to think of it, she started to wonder if those two younger men were the sons of that man.

_Could they be the guys who shot those weirdoes from earlier?_ Rachel thought.

"We got to get going," Rachel said.

Jolie got to her feet and then followed Rachel out into the mall again.

"Let's just walk and then find somewhere to go," Rachel said.

Jolie then took a deep breath. There were more completely dead zombies on the ground. The two just walked as Rachel didn't want to attract any attention. She had a bad feeling about those guys.

But it wasn't long enough, as the moment the two ladies walked right in front of Emerald's, a jewelry store, one the younger men said, "Hey, Dad, I see something over there!"

Then the older man turned around and saw the two ladies. "Thanks, Jack."

The other young man yelled, "Dad, Jack, no! They're not zombies!"

"Shut up, Thomas!" Jack said. "You don't know if they are!"

The father said, "Quiet, you two. Get your guns."

Jolie then saw the three men draw their weapons.

"Rachel!" Jolie yelled.

Rachel quickly looked to her left and her eyes widened. The two friends quickly ran into the nearest store, which was Ladies' Space. It had white walls and an orange color scheme on the posters and on the some of the furniture.

They wasted no time as they quickly hid behind a shelf in the center of the store closest to the service counter. Jolie dropped down to sit on the floor and trembled and breathed very hard. Rachel sat down on the floor next to her. She looked right at her friend, who continued to breathe and shake.

"Jolie, are you okay?" Rachel said.

"They looked like they were going to shoot us!" Jolie said.

"Calm down," Rachel said.

"I can't, they might find us and kill us!" Jolie said.

"They didn't fire anything at us," Rachel said. "One of those guys tried to stop them."

Jolie slowly looked right at her friend. Rachel had a point. They probably thought that they were zombies.

"I think those were the guys who saved us earlier," Rachel said. "If we go out and show ourselves, they'll see that we are people. We can try to talk to them and then maybe they can let us go."

What Rachel said sort of contradicted what she thought before, but because one of them tried to tell the other two men that she and Jolie weren't zombies, it was possible that they could be reasoned with. There was only one way to find out.

The two friends slowly got to their feet. But then, BANG! And then a cracking sound occurred through one of the glass windows of the store. Jolie then looked behind her as a hole was appeared on the wall. In fact, the bullet hole was only a few inches away to her left, even though she was a bit far from the wall. Jolie then wondered if she had been standing at that very moment.

Without warning, Jolie just took off running.

"JOLIE, NO, WAIT!" Rachel yelled.

But it was too late, as Jolie had left the store. She kept running right past The Shoehorn and kept on speeding. A couple of other gunshots were fired. Once she made it past Kathy's Boutique, she realized she was home free, but then a gunshot was fired directly at the right side of Estelle's Fine-Lady Cosmetics. Right in front of her was the escalator.

_Oh no, I left Rachel behind!_ She thought. The gunshots that were fired, it's possible that she didn't make it. But it wasn't time to think about that right now. There was only one thing on her mind.

She went right towards the escalator. Zombies were on both ends. The only other option was to go down through the planters.

She went right beside the escalator that goes down and jumped from one planter to another one below. Once she was down to the third lowest, she jumped right to the tile floor and then quickly made a break for it. It didn't matter where she went. She just wanted to get away from the gunfire. She quickly went inside Gramma's Kids and then dropped the floor. She almost got shot, but what hurt inside the most was that she left her friend behind.

_Damn it, Jolie? Why did you leave her?!_ She then started break down from what just happened. Those three men could have killed Rachel. But how could she know? If she went back out into the mall, she wouldn't be so lucky.

She lied there and then heard more gunshots occur. No matter how much she wanted to see if her one of her closest friends was okay, there was just no way that she would make it in time.

But then suddenly, a couple of men walked into the store. One was an overweight man with a white shirt and shorts; the other was a man with a camera. The man was Frank West. It was then that the gunfire had finally ended.

Jolie looked up and saw the two men.

"Hey, mister, will you help me out?" Jolie said. "My friend Rachel, she…"

"What?" Frank said. "What happened to this Rachel girl?"

Jolie wiped the tears from her eyes a bit. "I was with her upstairs. She got left behind on the second floor in Ladies' Space. I ran, because I heard some gunfire. Those hunters probably got to her."

Frank had a look of slight confusion on his face and then leaned in slightly to look her in the eye and then looked at the other man.

"You said Ladies' Space, right?" Frank said. "I'll go check on her. Wait here, okay?"

He turned to the other man and said, "Wayne, keep an eye on her."

Wayne nodded his head.

Jolie then looked up and saw Frank exit the store. Wait, what if she is alive?

Jolie yelled, "Wait, I want to go, too!" She ran out through the door of the store, with Wayne right behind her. "Take me with you."

Frank saw Jolie and Wayne approach him. "Come on, let's go look for your friend."

Frank had given Wayne a katana to use to help protect himself from zombies. Jolie had run pretty fast to try to catch up to her friend. There was only one thing on her mind right then.

The moment Frank walked in through the doorway of Ladies' Space, Rachel quickly got up from behind the service counter.

"No, get away! I don't know you!" Rachel yelled. "Someone please help me! Jolie, where are you? Jolie!"

The moment Jolie heard Rachel's voice, she sped up a bit and caught up to Frank.

Jolie walked into the store. "Rachel!"

"Jolie!" Rachel yelled, who then smiled as a tear started to trickle a tad from her eye. The two women wasted no time and hugged each other.

Jolie backed up. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have left you behind. I was so scared of getting shot or even eaten by zombies."

Rachel then put her hand on her friend's shoulder. "It's okay, Jolie. You came back for me and that's all that matters."

But Jolie couldn't help but feel bad. She said she was sorry once again.

Frank then cut in. "Any chance I could get you ladies to continue your conversation in a safer place? I'll escort you to the security room. Come on, follow me. I'll talk you there."

"The security room?" Rachel said. "But we tried going in there earlier."

"Long story, I'll explain when we get there," Frank said. "Let's go."

But Frank remembered having been told about an old man who was in an antique store, which happened to very close by. Frank led Wayne, Jolie, and Rachel into Ned's Knicknackery.

Frank had a long talk with an old man named Floyd in there. But it had to take some convincing for the old man to follow Frank. While in there, Rachel had smashed one of the glass cases to take a sword. She wanted to help protect herself and Jolie along the way from zombies.

Frank had carried the old man on his back, while the two ladies and Wayne followed. It was time to get to safety.

It took a bit for them to get there as they had to get through Paradise Plaza and the warehouse to get to the elevator and finally through the air-duct to get into the security room. Frank had noted to all of them that the door was welded shut in case zombies were to try to come in.

But it didn't matter, as they were finally home free.

Rachel and Jolie went inside one of the rooms. Jolie couldn't look at her friend in the eye after what had happened.

"Jolie, please don't feel bad," Rachel said.

Just then, tears started to come out of Jolie's eyes.

"I can't help it," Jolie said as her voice cracked.

Rachel hugged her friend once again. "Listen to me, you came back for me. I know why you ran. You were scared. I was, too. But I managed to keep myself out of sight of those hunters or even zombies. Besides, I was afraid that they got you, too."

Jolie then looked at Rachel in the eye when she heard her say that.

"But it's okay, we're safe," Rachel said. "Everything's going to be okay. Don't worry."

Jolie nodded her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So with this one, because you find Jolie and Rachel at the same time of that psychopath battle with the Hall family, I thought it would be better if they somehow got caught up in that mess. The mission with Floyd also happens at that same time and every time I play it, I always get them at the same time.
> 
> Regarding if I would do a chapter on Floyd, I could imagine it being with him reflecting on everything. Just like how I want to do one on Leah, because I included Bill, Burt, and Aaron in the chapters about Bill, as well as the one about Burt and Aaron. For Leah, I could just have it be with her reflecting on what happened, even though that would be depressing, but her whole story was already depressing as it was and that would be the whole point.
> 
> Anyway, peace out, you guys.


	11. Photographer's Pride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a chapter on Kent Swanson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first time I do one that is centered on a psychopath. I know that in this one, as well as my Dead Rising 2 anthology that I touched on bits involving psychopaths, but this will be one where the focal point is on that particular character-type.

It has been often said that a picture "is worth a thousand words." Any type of imagery can tell a story and you can interpret the meaning behind a single image. When looking at a picture, there's more to it than just looking at it from a technical standpoint. A lot of the time the picture gives off a vibe that makes the viewer feel something when looking at it.

Kent Swanson, a young photographer, saw the outbreak in Willamette as the perfect opportunity to shoot pictures. The young photographer wanted to show that he can get a lot of shots of different things in the midst of the hell that the small town was going through.

When the outbreak had started, he had gone through various parts of the town. He witnessed a lot of things. A man on top of a car surrounded by zombies, zombies surrounding a school bus with children and the driver likely inside, and also an explosion occurring at the Tornado gas station. Another thing he had witnessed at some point was a military jeep with three escaped convicts wreaking havoc on the town. Not just on the undead, but also on people running around trying to avoid the zombies.

But to Kent, this was just another day of getting some shots for his portfolio. It didn't matter what happened to anybody out there. These were shots of some horrific events that occurred in the midst of the outbreak. All that mattered to him was whether the shots were in focus and timed right.

When he finally made it to the Willamette Parkview Mall, he had noticed some people inside the Entrance Plaza. Two women were hugging because one of them was saddened by everything that happened. An older couple was arguing about something. Three men were trying to barricade the doors to the main entrance of the mall. So many great photo ops were around just for him to seize them.

It wasn't until the mall started swarming with the undead that things started to pick up, well, for him, anyway. Thanks the carelessness of an old lady who cared about her dog, several lives had ended in that part of the mall. But that didn't stop him from going in and taking a lot of photos of everything that was happening. Even though a lot of carnage had occurred then, many of the shots he took told a story, albeit a graphic one.

He came prepared that he brought multiple cameras with him, among other equipment to use. To him, this was just the perfect opportunity to take pictures. This whole outbreak was inspiration to him, as everything around him was worthy of a photo.

However, one chance meeting made things a bit complicated for him. That same day, he happened to be walking around the second floor of Paradise Plaza, he saw a man walking around with a camera. He had walked in through the door that went into Leisure Park right by Jill's Sandwiches. He took pictures of the zombies that were walking around. This man with a camera looked like he knew what he was doing, but to Kent, he probably was an amateur compared to him.

The man walked upstairs and went into Colombian Roastmasters. Kent saw him and then approached him. The man said his name was Frank West. Kent made his introduction, too, and also told Frank that he probably isn't as good of a photographer as he is. Frank talked in such a demeanor that he played along and wasn't about to feed this guy's ego.

Kent offered to model for him and also kill a few zombies in the process so that Frank can shoot. It wasn't long, as the two photographers went back right by the coffee shop. Kent looked at Frank's camera feed and gave him some praise. Then he showed Frank what he had shot while at the mall. He challenged Frank to do a good shot for the following day, as he believed that Frank wouldn't even measure up to his skills.

It wasn't just any shot, though. Kent had shown Frank a picture of an attractive blonde wearing a revealing dress. To him, there was just no way Frank would find any attractive women who would be of service to him. Kent felt that he can't lose this bet.

But deep down, he saw what Frank had shot and in some ways, he wished that he had gotten better angles at some of them, or even timed them much better. What was aggravating to him was that Frank only had that one camera and some of the shots were better than his own.

He wasn't going to let it bother him, though, as he felt that Frank wouldn't be able to shoot that kind of picture, especially with there possibly lacking any women wearing so little in the mall. He knows that there is no way.

The two photographers had separated. Frank went to do his thing, while Kent went to do his. He took off to various parts of the mall. He found the same jeep that ravaged through town in Leisure Park.

As time went on, more opportunities opened up. He found a couple of teenage twin sisters walking around. He even kept a distance so that he could take some lecherous shots of their bodies, especially with their thongs coming out of the waistbands of their shorts. He even took off to Wonderland Plaza to find a clown wielding two small chainsaws, as well as an obese female mall cop brutally beating some women before dragging them to a store. He even took a look inside the store.

_Man, this is some good shit right here!_ He thought, as he saw some women tied to some of the tables, as well as one tied to a chair, while the mall cop got out taser and a nightstick.

Right through the lens, he saw the mall cop look at her two weapons like she was deciding on what to use. One shot, click! The cop looked at her taser. Another shot, click! The cop looked at her nightstick. Through the lens, the cop then started touching the girl in the chair in such of lecherous way.

_Frankie, you can't beat shots like this!_ Kent thought as he grinned while he continued to photograph what was going on.

When night had fallen, it was time to use his flash, but he had continued to stay out of sight so that he could avoid suspicion. If anything, this whole outbreak was going to be his best work yet.

It was now the following day. He had set up a meeting with Frank once again to see if he had shot anything sexy. So much excitement was running through his veins, as he knew that Frank wouldn't measure up to his level in terms of sexy photos.

But it wasn't just that kind of photo. He managed to catch what looked like a cult organizing an execution in the middle of the mall, as well as a young girl being surrounded by a large swarm of zombies in a moat. So much stuff that he can't lose this bet with Frank.

The meeting had come and Frank handed Kent the camera so that he could search the feed. He found a couple of photos of that nature. One was of an auburn-haired woman in the security room sitting on the floor and some of it was focused on the positioning of how she sat, and also a glimpse of her underwear through her skirt. The other was of a blonde woman sitting on a cot next to a man lying down. She sat in such a way that her cleavage was showing and also her underwear through the bottom of her skirt.

Kent saw the pictures and then looked up at Frank of mild disdain. He then went through the feed a little more. One picture that stood out was that of the cult coming right at him. Another was of an older couple hugging each other. There was even a well-framed shot of a couple of Japanese tourists doing some pose for him.

The look of disdain went from mild to heavy. He handed the camera back to Frank and turned his head and said with the same level of disdain in his voice, "Beginner's luck, that's all."

How could this have happened? It was right then that he knew that Frank was a much better photographer than he was. He happened to be front and center with the cult. He got different shots of some random things in the mall, as well as some more emotionally-moving shots than he ever did.

But he couldn't live with that thought in his head, as he challenged Frank to one more contest. Kent had to ensure that Frank would not win this time. There had to be a way to get the perfect shot to one-up Frank West.

What kind of shot should he do? He saw that there were a lot of zombies around. He also saw that there were some living people around. While he went ahead and got some shots of the cult kidnapping people, as well as snipers in the Entrance Plaza, this wasn't going to be enough. Kent wanted to prove that he really was better than Frank at this. But how? What was he going to do? There had to be a way. There just had to be.

After a while, he started noticing some other people turning into zombies in the mall. Not just through being bitten, but also through being stung by some wasps. At some point, Kent discovered that when he killed one of the wasps, several zombies not only collapsed and died right then, but also some stuff had come out of the zombies. Kent took a closer look and saw that it was larvae, which would evolve into the wasps at some point. How would he know? Not long after, he witnessed a larva somehow crawl into a living person who was lying on the ground somewhere in the mall. He took a look through his telephoto lens and saw it crawl into the man.

It didn't take long for the man to get up but then noticed how light-headed he was. But it didn't take long for the person to finally reanimate into a zombie.

_Wow, his body couldn't handle it, huh?_ He thought. But then it hit him. He finally came up with the perfect shot, or at least few shots. Hell, maybe he could shoot a video. But this was all about getting the perfect shot and he knew that this will show that he is better than Frank.

Throughout the entire time, before his third meeting with Frank, Kent had searched the mall for any survivors who happened to be strolling around. One man caught his attention. It didn't matter to him on if it was a man or a woman, just any person would be viable for this photo opportunity.

He found a man and got out his 9mm pistol and pointed it right behind his head.

"Stop right there," Kent said.

"Who are you, man?" the man said. The man turned out to be Tad Hawthorne.

"I'm an artist and you're going to model for me," Kent said.

"What?" Tad said. "What are you talking about?"

Kent then got out a rag with chloroform on it and put it right to Tad's face. In a matter of seconds, Tad started to get woozy and then fell asleep. Kent then dragged Tad's body inside a store in Paradise Plaza and then tied his wrists together.

He then got out a jar with a larva in it and smiled. _Oh, Frankie, wait until you see what I got up my sleeve._

It was now noon. Kent had brought Tad, who was tied up and on his knees right in front of Colombian Roastmasters and the second floor of SporTrance. He held Tad at gunpoint and said, "Don't worry, you're going to be fine." And then chuckled a bit.

Frank happened to be walking by and saw Kent holding the man at gunpoint.

"Ah, Frankie, good timing!" Kent said as he held the pistol to the man's head and then gets out the larva.

Tad continued to squirm a bit while kneeling on the ground.

"I was just about to shoot my piece resistance!" Kent said. "I'm going to capture _on film_ the exact moment a human crosses into zombiehood!"

Kent then throws the larva towards Kent behind him. As the larva crawls close to the man, Frank reacts and quickly stomps on it. Kent looks up and his eyes widened.

"What are you doing? My shot," Kent said and then looks down at the splatter from the dead larva. "Y-you ruined my perfect shot!"

A scowl grew on Kent's face as he raised the gun to Frank's face. But that wasn't going to stop him, after what Frank had faced the whole time he was at the mall. Because Frank knew that Kent wouldn't just blast him right on the spot.

Before Kent pulled the trigger, Frank reacted and shoved and then punched Kent in the face. But that wasn't going to stop Kent, as the moment he noticed Frank quickly jumping around, he drew his handgun again and started shooting. He was a horrible shot that none of the slugs landed close to him. Kent started running after him and then tried to deliver his jump kick, but then missed.

A look of anger was on Kent's face, as he then rushed right towards Frank to tackle him against the wall right next to Marriage Makers.

"You ruined my shot, you son of a bitch!" Kent said.

But Frank then pushed him off and then punched him to knock him back a bit.

"That man does not deserve that!" Frank said. Realizing that this fight wasn't worth it, Frank then approached Tad to help free him.

Kent looked over with the same scowl, except this time his teeth started to show. He looked over and saw the pistol from before. He reached over and slowly crawled right towards it. His hand felt the metal and gripped the gun's grip. He slowly got up and pointed it right at Frank, who stood behind Tad undoing the restraints.

"Hey, Frankie!" Kent yelled.

Frank and Tad looked up right in front of them as Kent pointed the pistol right towards both men.

It was now or never. Frank immediately rushed towards Kent to tackle him to the ground. Kent held onto the pistol and was ready to open fire, but Frank countered his attack and then pressed the barrel against Kent's stomach and then BANG!

Frank quickly got up and noticed some blood on his stomach, but it wasn't his. There were no open wounds, but then saw that there was more blood on Kent's stomach. It was clear what just happened.

Kent lied there and handed Frank his camera. He told Frank to take a picture of him right there and that it would look good on his mantle. But Frank wasn't about to do that, especially after what had just happened. He saw that Kent had gone insane. The previous day, Frank saw how Kent's ego was affected when he saw more of his pictures.

It was obvious that his ego was his only problem. Kent wanted to show that he was better, but he also showed how far he was willing to go, even at the cost of someone's life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to add in bits with Kent looking at Frank's other photos to really bruise his ego a bit. I know a lot of people found this character to be annoying (I know I did), but I wanted to illustrate how far he was willing to go. Plus, the only other photo you could do for the second meeting was of Sophie, but I know the better choice was that of Jessie. I decided to use both of them.
> 
> Also, I like to think that there were other survivors that turned at some point, which gave him the idea of his photo for Tad to turn into a zombie.
> 
> I can relate to this whole thing because I, myself, am also into photography. I take pictures of different things myself, but then there are photos that I can see are done better or done with different styles. I have felt jealous, but after a while, I decided to see that styles vary and that I shouldn't compare myself to others.
> 
> Speaking of photography, I also have thought of doing the mission of "Cheryl's Request," but that would more of a comical approach in that I want to touch on the expressions from the other survivors. I mean, seriously, wouldn't you be confused about a photo shoot going on right in front of you, especially with a woman doing sexy poses?


	12. Cheryl's Request

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cheryl Jones wants a picture taken of her in case she doesn't make it out of Willamette.

In more than 12 hours, all of the survivors were set to be freed from the hell that Willamette had become. For Cheryl Jones, she had an idea of her own.

Cheryl Jones happened to be crossing through Willamette with a wealthy man named Wesley Davidson, but somehow, the car that the man had broken down. Things led to another, as Wesley and Cheryl found themselves finding refuge at the Willamette Parkview Mall when they realized that zombies started to swarm the area.

Besides, Cheryl thought it would be nice to check the stores to look for something nice.

Cheryl was left in the Entrance Plaza when Wesley went to park his car out in the lot. However, she waited a pretty long time until she tried to reach him through her cellphone. But there was no answer. She tried to call him so many times, but there was no answer. Was there no signal? Or did he just not pick up because of the likely chance of him meeting his end out there.

But somehow, she managed to survive a few days in the mall. Even in that really nice and expensive dress and in those shoes she wore. It was a miracle. But not for long, as at some point, she was abducted by the True Eye Cult, along with other people.

For some reason, the True Eye Cult had set up shop in Colby's Movieland. Cheryl was locked inside the warehouse area of one of the auditoriums, while four other people were tied up in the theater's seats.

When Frank West came to save her and the other four people, Michelle Feltz, Nathan Crabbe, Beth Shrake, and Ray Mathison, she felt like she owed Frank a lot. It also occurred to her that he was carrying a camera as well.

While she and her newfound friends discussed a lot of what had happened and what had led to them getting kidnapped, she realized that she wanted to repay her debt to Frank as soon as possible. She left the room where she and the rest of her group was and went through the janitor's room to approach Otis and Greg, who were standing by the ventilation duct.

Greg looked up and looked at the stunning blonde up and down. Otis, on the other hand, was rather calm in the matter.

"Excuse me, sir," Cheryl said to Otis. "Do you have any way of contacting Frank? I really need to talk to him."

Otis then reached his hand to his pants and got the transceiver and reached his hand out to hand it to her. "Here, you want to talk to him?"

"No, I don't mean like that," Cheryl said. "I mean I want to come here so I can talk to him up close and personal."

Otis leaned in a tad with a look on his that said, "Oh, I see now."

"Oh, okay, I'll get him to come up here in a bit," Otis said and then talked into the walkie-talkie. "Hey, Frank. This Cheryl girl says that she wants to talk to you about something. She's kind of cute, so if I were you, I'll listen to what the little lady's got to say."

Through the speaker, Frank said, "On my way."

Otis then put down his transceiver. "He'll be here soon."

Cheryl nodded her head and then went back to the room she was in. As she walked away, Otis and Greg tilted their heads a tad to get a look at her. Greg then shook his head to snap out of it. He couldn't get distracted in this situation.

It wasn't long until Frank had gotten back to the security room and went through the blue door where Cheryl was. Lots of people were in there, from Burt and Aaron, Pamela and Heather, Ronald, Bill, and also the rest of Cheryl's new friends.

Frank approached Cheryl. "Hey, I heard you had something to discuss with me."

Cheryl, who was talking with the twins at the time, turned around to face Frank.

"Well, I'm not sure 'discuss' is the right word. Let's be formal, Frank. I have a favor to ask you. It's really important and you're the only one I trust. I want you to take a picture, a picture of me."

Confused about this, Frank got his camera and said, "Sounds easy enough, but why?"

"What do you think of me, Frank?" Cheryl said. "I mean as a photographic subject."

"Uh, yeah, I…," Frank said. "You're…um…provocative."

"Things are looking grim," Cheryl said. "Who knows how this is all going to turn out? I don't want to die without leaving something behind. I cannot stand the idea of just disappearing. So…take my picture? I want you to take what's beautiful and put it inside your camera."

"I'd be happy to, as a photographer and a man," Frank said, even though he saw that this was an odd place and an odd time to do it. "Where do you want to do this?"

"Right here is fine," Cheryl said. "Come here."

Just then, Cheryl struck a sexy pose by putting her right hand behind her head and her left hand to her hip.

Without question, Frank looked through his camera and quickly took a couple of pictures. Just then, everyone, not just the twins, not just Burt and Aaron, but everyone in the room all looked in the direction of what was going on.

Cheryl then struck another sexy pose, with both of her hands behind the back of her head and then bent over a tad.

Pamela and Heather, who stood in the corner as this happened looked on with so much confusion. Pamela slowly tried to walk away, while Heather stood there.

"Heather," Pamela whispered to her sister. "What are you doing?!"

"Oh, come on, I want to get in the picture," Heather whispered back to her sister.

Pamela shook her head and gave her the "come here" hand gesture.

Meanwhile, Burt and Aaron watched and tilted their heads a bit to look at Cheryl doing more poses. Aaron started to sweat a bit, as did Burt.

"Man, this is hot," Aaron whispered right to Burt, who nodded his head and smirked and then slapped dap with his friend.

Bill and Ronald stood there and watched this unlikely event unfold. Nathan and Ray did the same thing.

Michelle and Beth looked on with confusion and mild disgust.

"What the hell is happening here?" Beth said. "Why on earth would she think that this would be a good time for a photo shoot?"

Michelle was more just confused and just scoffed at what was happening right in front of everyone. At that moment, some other people from other rooms even left and watched through the window.

"I don't know, but somehow a lot of others wanted to get a look," Michelle said.

Cheryl continued to pose and by this point, she finally got to the floor and did some more sexy poses.

"Closer," Cheryl said in a seductive tone. "I can feel your eyes on me."

She even got on all fours and acted like a dog or cat and gave off a seductive facial gesture. Frank squatted to get that shot.

Everyone in the room, as well as some others outside in the hallway, just continued to watch.

Heather looked on with a minor scowl on her face. Pamela looked over at her sister.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Pamela said.

"I'm just a little upset," Heather said. "I mean I'm pretty. Why can't he take pictures of me?"

Pamela shrugged at that comment.

Cheryl then stood up on her feet. "Alright, that's a wrap! Thanks. Take care of that picture, okay?"

"I will," Frank said. "If we all make it out, I can use this as part of my portfolio."

Frank then reached for his wallet. "If you ever want to model for me again, here's my card." He handed Cheryl his business card.

Without warning, Frank just approached the door.

"Excuse me, Frank?" But then Frank looked to his right and saw Heather approach him.

"Hi, I was just wondering if maybe one day you could take pictures of me as well," Heather said. "Maybe me and Pamela. What do you think?"

"Heather!" Pamela said as she stood behind her sister.

Frank then chuckled a bit. He still had his wallet in his hand and then handed Heather a business card as well.

"I wouldn't mind doing that, but let's wait until we all get out of here first," Frank said.

As Frank walked out the door, Heather yelled, "Thank you!"

Back in the room, everyone looked at Cheryl like they didn't expect that photo shoot to happen right then and there. It wasn't long until everyone got back to doing their own thing. Everyone who went to get a look of the photo shoot went back to their rooms.

Cheryl just stood back and wondered what the future held. After giving Frank an impromptu photo shoot, she felt that she would be great for his portfolio.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will note that this was something I had thought of doing. It wouldn't be the first time that I did something like this, as I included "Simone the Gunslinger" in my chapter about her. I even did something like this for "Fortune City Survivor Stories."
> 
> Also, in my mind, I could just imagine everyone's reaction to the impromptu photo shoot that happen in the security room. In some playthroughs I've done, as well as watching Let's Plays, I noticed Pamela and Heather standing by as this went on. I could imagine Heather being jealous of this happening. With Pamela standing there, I could see her trying to get out of frame. The rest of the reactions are what I can imagine from them.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this. Peace out.


	13. Ronald's Appetite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is about Ronald Shiner and his gluttonous appetite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is something that I have been meaning to do for a while. I mean as far back as when I was about to work on the one with the twins, maybe even before that. But I had a hard time deciding on an angle I wanted to work with. Now that I thought of one, here it is. Enjoy!

For Ronald Shiner, zombies had no bearing on his personal concerns on the outbreak. While some people had their own personal issues, whether it was losing a young child to zombies, or being trapped behind boxes in a storage room in a store, or even dealing losing a boyfriend to a band of escaped convicts, for Ronald, his own concern was satisfying his bottomless hunger.

Such was his one major flaw, even though he didn't think of it as a flaw, not even a little bit. The town of Willamette was infested with the infected. Even when there were people on the streets, he noticed that the Tornado gas station was up in flames.

"Damn, now where can I find those Smiley Pies?" Ronald thought when he saw that the gas station on fire. "There's got to be some food around here."

It wasn't as if the now-burned-down gas station had any food. He had tried going to Jack's Market beforehand. It was only a few blocks away, but it wasn't open. Nobody was there. It wasn't that it was closed that day. Just that it wasn't open for business because no employees showed up.

"Where can I find me something to eat? I'm dying here," Ronald said.

But then he remembered something. The mall had a lot of places where he could find some food. But the real question was this: was he looking for food to survive? Or did he just want food to indulge on?

The memory of the mall providing eateries, whether it was in the food court or in at least a few of the sections, or even Seon's Food and Stuff, he was ready to satisfy himself. All he can think about was indulging on food.

To him, finding food to satisfy his hunger, or appetite for that matter, was his number one priority. It didn't matter if people were dying from getting eaten alive by zombies, food was just that important to him. Not so much that he needed to eat to survive, but because he just needed food to indulge himself.

When he arrived at the mall, it was time for him to search for something to much on, even if there was food lying around. To him, that's all that mattered. It didn't matter if it was unsanitary, uncooked, or anything like that. Food was food to him.

On one of those days, the first place Ronald went to was the food court. Sure, he may have cut through the Entrance Plaza to get there even if it meant having to go through the Al Fresca Plaza. Of course, he saw that there was a Colombian Roastmasters in that section, along with a Hamburger Fiefdom, but the food court was really where he wanted to be.

The whole place was decked out like a town from the old west, with the Willamette Parkview Mall bee at the top of the sign where the tables were set up. On the other end near the doors to Leisure Park were Chris' Fine Foods and That's a Spicy Meatball! The moment he saw those places, along with the rest, such as Teresa's Oven, Meaty's Burgers, Frozen Dreams, among others, he was in hog heaven. It was amazing how he wasn't even in the least bit concerned about the undead swarming the area. Why worry about that when there was food there?

He had remembered that there was more food to be found in the supermarket in the North Plaza. At some point, he went to check out the place. So much variety to choose from, but not at the expense of a crazed store manager who noticed the portly man rummaging through the aisles searching for food. But really, a lot of the cans and boxes of products were found on the floor, probably because Ronald was chucking them to the ground. The manager, Steven Chapman, went to confront him.

"Excuse me, sir," Steven said. "I need you to pick up that stuff off the floor."

"Hey, I'm busy here," Ronald said.

"Sir, I am the manager here," Steven said. "As the manager, I will kindly ask you to clean up the mess."

Ronald didn't want to comply, because all he cared about was the food he was getting.

"Sir, if you don't do this, I will ask you to leave," Steven said.

And just like that, Ronald took some boxes of cookies, bags of chips, and a few baguettes, along with some wine and just headed for the door.

"Sir, get back here and pay for your food!" Steven said.

But Ronald didn't listen. He had already gotten out of the store right then. He didn't bother to pay for the food, because he just _really_ needed it that badly.

He had spent a lot of time just searching for things to eat. That's all he did. Why? Why didn't he try looking for safety? It was true that the food that he was looking for wasn't because he needed it in case he got hungry. If he saw someone eating something, he would likely snatch the food from that. It was all about what he wanted, not what anybody else wanted or needed. It didn't help that he would even eat some pies that were just lying there by the counter at Colombian Roastmasters located on the second floor of Paradise Plaza. But soon after, he saw from the railing up above on the second floor a Jill's Sandwiches right by the doors to Leisure Park and it was adjacent to Colby's Movieland.

It had only been a couple of hours, but to Ronald, it was just the right amount of time between meals. He went downstairs to the restaurant. But there was one problem: no food was to be found! He tried looking for anything he could find. Bread, meat, cheese, anything that's put in sandwiches, but there was none to any avail.

But at some point, a photojournalist named Frank West was seen carrying a bag of chips that he found in the movie theater nearby went to check out Jill's Sandwiches. He had been informed of a man looking for food in that restaurant.

Ronald looked over and saw the man with the camera and chips in hand. He quickly approached the man.

"Hey, you've got some food, right?" Ronald didn't hold back at what he said. "Come on, I'm dying here!"

He quickly grabbed the bag from Frank's hand.

"Trying to bogart it all for yourself, huh?" Ronald said as he opened the bag. "You're just going to eat every last morsel? And here I am starving to death. You've got a lot of nerve, jerk."

Frank gave him a look like, "What the hell, man?"

Frank stood there and watched Ronald down the entire bag of chips in just a few minutes. Right after Ronald was done, he let out a big burp, much to Frank's disgust. But Frank wasn't going to let his personal feelings get in the way.

"Stick around here and you'll be the one getting eaten," Frank said. "Come with me, I'll take you to the security room."

"Is there food there?" Ronald said.

Frank paused for a bit and then said, "Yeah" in a way that sounded a bit hesitant.

Just like that, Ronald agreed to go with him.

But it just wasn't enough for him. Hours later, Ronald had looked in other rooms where other survivors were and even went to the main security room and went right to the box of food reserves and just went right for it. He noticed that there wasn't enough food left, likely because other people ate food because they actually _needed_ it to satisfy their hunger.

He went back to the room and asked everyone, "Okay, who ate most of the food?"

Nobody talked. Ronald saw Bill in the room. Being that Bill was overweight himself, Ronald quickly assumed that Bill ate a lot of the food, but Bill denied it, because unlike Ronald, Bill only ate because he was actually hungry.

He started talking to the other people in the room, ranging from Sophie, Bill, Burt, Aaron, and even the twin sisters to get to the ventilation duct where Otis and Greg stood.

"Whoa, what's going on here?" Otis said.

"Out of our way, old man," Ronald said. "We're going to find some food."

"Hey, we had enough food here for everyone," Otis said. "You even want back for more just right after you came here."

"What are you trying to say?" Ronald said.

"I'm saying you need to realize that other people needed that food," Otis said.

"That doesn't matter," Ronald said. "I just want some food, that's all."

Otis and Greg looked at him with a bit of disgust. They saw that this guy really didn't care that the food was only for people to eat in case they got hungry, because all that mattered was if he got the food for himself.

"Look, go back to the room, I'll think of something, okay?" Otis said.

Ronald scoffed and turned back around with the others following him to get back to the room.

Otis got the transceiver to call Frank back to the security room. Otis knew that this guy was going to try to get his group out there to scavenge for food, so there had to be a way to prevent it.

It wasn't long until Frank came back to the security room and headed for the room with the blue door where Ronald was. Frank knew what that guy was up to when he met him. So he picked up some food and put it in a blender at Colombian Roastmasters. Frank had a little trick up his sleeve, because he inadvertently tried this himself earlier on. So maybe this could be his way of teaching that selfish man a lesson. The blender came out with black liquid. Frank put it in a coffee cup he found somewhere.

Ronald stood before everyone in the room. "Hey, everybody, I'm getting out of here! I'm gone! I'm leaving to track down some food!"

Ronald turned around and saw Frank right in front of him with that coffee cup in hand.

"I don't mean to burst your bubble, but I wouldn't recommend doing that," Frank said.

Ronald got closer to Frank. "Screw you, jerkoff! I only came here because you said that there'd be food. Well, where is it? I sure don't see any."

"We should have had enough to cover everyone's needs," Frank said. "What happened to that?"

"That is not enough," Ronald said. "Not to loot my own horn, but we eat like three times more than normal folks. You cannot leave us a freaking appetizer and expect us not to shrivel up and die of hunger. Of course, if you've got a secret stash set aside for us, then that's a different story."

"Everyone else is getting by okay on these portions," Frank said. "Maybe you ought to make a little sacrifice yourself. Besides, the food here was for everyone, not just you. Besides, they needed food for hunger."

"Screw that noise man, sacrificing is for losers," Ronald said. "I want some damn grub! The way I see it, if I'm going starve to death anyway, I may as well just get eaten by zombies."

"Is that all you care about?" Frank said. "Listen, I brought something for you just in case. How does a protein shake sound to you?"

"Don't matter to me, drink is food, so bring it here," Ronald said.

Frank then handed the mixed drink to Ronald, who then downed the drink in such a quick minute. Ronald then jumped and raised his arm in the air with a big smile on his face.

"Food! Food! Food!" Ronald said. "I love food!"

Frank stood in front of him. It wasn't long until Ronald put his right hand on his stomach and then heard the sound of his stomach rumbling.

"Oh no, I don't feel so good," Ronald said. "Excuse me."

Ronald quickly ran out the door and headed for the security room. The moment he saw a garbage can right next to the desk where the TVs were, he picked it up and started vomiting into the garbage can.

Frank looked through the door of the security room. Everyone in the room heard the sound of Ronald throwing up. Burt and Aaron, along with Pamela and Heather approached Frank.

"Wow, what did you give him?" Burt said.

"Just a drink," Frank said.

"Did you do this on purpose?" Pamela said.

Frank turned towards the young people and said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Aaron said, "Whatever you gave him, he deserved it. I had a box of cookies with me when you found me and Burt yesterday. That fat ass took them away from me like that."

"Thank you very much for that," Aaron added.

Frank nodded and then took off. He went through the security room, where he saw Ronald kneeling over that garbage can. He just passed on by and headed right for the ventilation duct. Otis and Greg saw Frank approaching them.

"Damn, Frank, what did you give that guy?" Otis said.

"Let's just say that it was a healthy dose of karma," Frank said. "Besides, he probably won't feel hungry for a bit. Maybe I'll bring some food in a bit."

"Sounds good," Otis said. "Be careful out there."

Frank nodded and climbed into the duct.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had been thinking about doing one on Ronald and his gluttonous appetite for a while. Regarding the drink that Frank gave him, it was the Randomizer, the one that makes you sick. I felt that the drink was karma in a cup that Ronald needed. After all, that guy cared only about getting food for his own indulgence, not because of survival. There are even playthroughs that I've gone through that I just let him die or something. Besides, I don't buy that he would convince everyone in the room to go with him to look for food for his own selfish reasons. At least with Kindell, that guy seems more charismatic that he would get everyone to follow him. I might touch on him sometime.
> 
> Anyway, I have more ideas that I want to work on, whether it's a pairing of Alyssa and Jonathan (I wrote that they were a couple in "A Dead Getaway," as I had those two appear and I ship them anyway), Jo's victims (Kay, Lily, Kelly, and Janet), the Japanese tourists, etc. I have so many ideas that I want to work on for this one. But I'll see which one I want to do first.
> 
> Anyway, peace out.


	14. Shot by a Cupid's Bullet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alyssa tells Jonathan how she feels about him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is sort of a follow-up to the Survivalists chapter. This is mostly about Alyssa and Jonathan. Enjoy!

In the hours that had progressed after Frank West had found and led them to the security room, the trio of Brett Styles, Jonathan Picardsen, and Alyssa Laurent felt it was the right time to relax. They had spend the previous few days fighting to survive against the undead, but if anything, being in the security room was maybe one that they needed.

The trio found a room. It seemed that past the security room where surveillance video was shown on the TVs and a couple of federal agents were, there were a lot more people found inside the mall as seen through the windows and doors to the rooms. It didn't matter which room they went into, they picked one and immediately noticed that some people had gone through a bunch of stuff while out there.

The strange thing about this was that Brett quickly got himself acquainted with an attractive young woman with short blonde hair and also happened to wear a small T-shirt that bared her midriff and also some really short shorts. The woman happened to be named Kay. In that case, that meant that Jonathan was left to either try to interact with some of the women whom Kay happened to be with and made friends with, or talk with Alyssa. The only other option was keep to himself.

"Is something wrong, Jonathan?" Alyssa said as she saw Jonathan sitting all by his lonesome.

Jonathan looked up and saw Alyssa standing before him. Jonathan happened to be sitting on the floor at that very moment. The three friends had set their weapons aside in some lockers that were in the hallway that was close to a staircase leading up to a helipad on the roof of the mall.

"Oh, Alyssa, it's just you," Jonathan said. "Nothing's wrong, just got a lot on my mind right now."

"Why? We're safe, aren't we?" Alyssa said. "You and Brett saved me from those weird cult members. I even saved you two a few times. We had each other's backs, didn't we?"

Jonathan looked at Alyssa with a bit of intrigue. It was just a mere few hours prior that Jonathan was a bit irritated by her exuberance when they were out there in the pit of danger. It even applied to the same exuberance she exhibited when talking with Frank West, the man who just happened to find them in the gun store.

"Look, Jonathan," Alyssa said. "I never got the chance to thank you and Brett for saving me from those weirdoes in the raincoats."

"Don't worry about it, we all looked out for each other back there," Jonathan said.

"You don't get it," Alyssa said. "They knocked me out with some weird stuff. You tried to help wake me up. I don't know what could have happened to me if you or Brett didn't react when you did."

Despite her exuberance being somewhat irritating before, what Jonathan saw now was a different side of Alyssa. Though she could be somewhat annoying with her enthusiasm at times, he didn't mind having her around. He was already friends with Brett before going on this little adventure, as they were both veterans and met in a veterans program, but Alyssa had met the two at a shooting range and gun club meeting.

What was distracting about all of this was how Alyssa was dressed. Sure, Jonathan could say something about the woman his good friend was chatting with, but because Alyssa went with the two men on a hunting excursion, there was something off with Alyssa's choice in clothing. If someone was going on a hunt for survival or anything like that, a dress and high-heel shoes would be the last thing any woman should wear. There were times when Alyssa attended a meeting and would wear a plaid shirt and tied the bottom up in a knot and wore jeans. It's amazing that she would be wearing a dress and high-heels in that kind of situation.

"I just want to thank you for what you did for me," Alyssa said. "And I know that I can be a bit crazy at times when I jump for joy. I know it annoys you sometimes, but right now, it's not one of those moments. But other than that, I think you're a cool guy and what you did for me was sweet. I'll leave you alone right now if that's what you want."

Alyssa had reflected on what happened earlier. It wasn't about the part when Jonathan saved her from the True Eye Cult. It was about when Frank came to talk to them and Jonathan told her to be quiet because of her exuberance, which caused her to cry.

"But I just want you to know one thing," Alyssa said. "I like you Jonathan. When we went on our hunt earlier, I could tell by the look on your face and the look on Brett's face about why I was dressed this way. I know that I was not dressed for the part, but the truth is that I wanted you to notice me."

"Wait, what?" Jonathan appeared very surprised at what he was just told.

"I want to make an impression on you," Alyssa said. "I have liked you ever since we met at the club meeting. I know we're friends and we go on our hunts together, even with some of the other club members, but I wanted you to see me as something more than that."

"Why are you telling me this?" Jonathan said.

"I'm telling you in case we don't make it out of here," Alyssa said. "I don't want to die not telling you what I feel."

A lot of confusion flowed through Jonathan's head at that moment. Alyssa thought Jonathan was attractive, with his shaved head that he could pull off, along with his muscular build. She also thought that he was a cool guy, as long as he wasn't irritated. Though Alyssa saw some attractiveness in Brett, she mostly had eyes for Jonathan.

But really, Alyssa's attractiveness wasn't lost on Jonathan, either. Alyssa was a pretty woman, with her shoulder-length auburn hair and pretty face, not to mention that she looked stunning in that dress at first. Though he was a bit irritated by how bubbly Alyssa can be at times, in some ways it could be a bit charming to her as it is part of her personality. Though she could be serious when need be, like that very moment for instance.

"I just needed to get this get off my chest, that's all," Alyssa said. "I know I can be annoying sometimes, so I'll leave you alone."

Alyssa started to walk away so she can maybe interact with other people in the room, like Kay's friends.

"Alyssa, wait," Jonathan said. Alyssa turned to face Jonathan right when he said that.

"Do you really mean everything you said?" Jonathan said. "You liked me this whole time? You really wanted me to know in case we don't make it?"

Alyssa nodded her head. "Yes, I meant everything I said."

"Look, I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier," Jonathan said. "I was just a little stressed out, especially since I was trying to talk to that guy with the camera. But really, you seem like a cool gal yourself. Your joyfulness is really what makes your personality. If we do make it, I would like to take you on a real date. How does that sound?"

Alyssa looked directly into Jonathan's face. Even with Jonathan having a nose ring, she just looked directly at his blue eyes, as she lit up like a Christmas tree in that very moment.

"I would love that," Alyssa said with a smile on her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was it. This was short, but there wasn't a lot to tell. Maybe I could do more with these two in the future. A little note, because I had Alyssa and Jonathan appear in my DR2 spin-off, "Dead Rising: A Dead Getaway," I thought I touch on these two showing that these two feel something for one another, but it's really more Alyssa pouring her heart out to Jonathan, who then saw that maybe he might like her.
> 
> Also, before I did this, as well as Survivalists, I often wondered what exactly Alyssa's relationship towards Brett and Jonathan was. I wondered if she was just a friend or if she was the girlfriend of one of them. Yes, it's possible for a group to have men and women and not be romantically linked, but then you have her wearing a dress with high-heels, which is pretty unorthodox if you ask me.
> 
> I will do more soon. I plan to touch on not just other survivors, but also psychopaths and also the victims from the start of the game. Peace out.


	15. Nick and Sally

Many of the survivors in the security room had faced death that could have happened if not for a man who came to their rescue. Some even experienced danger that was far worse than being eaten alive by a zombie or even becoming one as well.

For Sally Mills and Nick Evans, they faced death in front of them, even if they tried to evade zombies and avoid being bitten. There was one problem, though. They didn't think it through at first. They found themselves hanging right on the ears of one of the rabbits in the Wonderland Plaza that was right by the window that overlooked Leisure Park and was right next to Estelle's Fine Cosmetics.

For some reason, the couple went to the Willamette Parkview Mall wearing Ratman shirts. Ever since Nick and Sally started dating, Sally started to gain more of an interest in Ratman. The Ratman movie had been out for about two months, as it was released during the summer, but was still playing after a couple of months being in theaters. In fact, even though the couple had gone to the mall for refuge. But if they got bored, they could go to Colby's Movieland if they wanted to see the movie again. After all, Nick knew how to work a projector and could watch the movie with Sally in the theater.

Nick and Sally sat in front of each other in a room. Nick couldn't look at his girlfriend because he felt a touch of jealousy when Sally thanked Frank for saving both of them and saying that he "was quite a man," as that felt emasculating.

"Nick, can we just please talk about this?" Sally said.

"Why?" Nick said. "You think that Frank guy was more of a man than me."

"It wasn't like that, you know that," Sally said. "I was just caught in the moment. That man was so brave that he killed all those zombies that were right under us and told us to let go when it was safe."

"You seemed really impressed by how ballsy that guy was," Nick said. "I saw you looking at him like this guy was 'a real man' or some shit."

Sally sighed. "It wasn't like that. I was just impressed by what he did. Besides, Nick, don't act like you didn't keep me safe, even though what we did was a bit stupid. Besides, I'm with you, and you and I had watched out for each other since we got here."

Nick sighed a bit. Sally had a point. He realized that he shouldn't feel jealous about this. The two had been dating for months up to that point. Sally was a pretty woman with nice dark skin and very pretty light brown eyes. Though Nick wasn't that conventionally good-looking and had a stout frame, he had an appeal to him. The man had a beard and had an average look to him. Not exactly a model-type, but he had an appeal. But really, what appealed to Sally was that this man was really down to Earth and that he treated her well, unlike other guys she had dated before him. Nick was also more mature than them, as he was only six years older than Sally.

"Besides, Nick, I wouldn't be here if you hadn't pulled me away from that fat cop," Sally said. "I even saw inside that store that she held those poor girls hostage."

"Yeah, but we could have fallen into those zombies if that guy with the camera didn't come to us in time," Nick said. "We were so lucky."

Sally scooted to get closer to Nick. "Maybe it wasn't our time yet. Even if that guy just saved me and didn't save you, I don't know how I would have taken it. You're not like any other guys from before."

She wrapped her arms around him and leaned towards him. Nick wrapped his arm around Sally.

"It really touches me to hear you say that," Nick said. "I just can't believe that we couldn't just get the hell out of there. I wonder why we had to try climbing that damn rabbit."

Sally backed away and faced Nick right in the eye. "We didn't stop and think at that point. But we're still alive and we still have each other."

Nick nodded his head. The thing that caught his eye was that there was another couple in the same room. They were two African-American people. One was a man with a muscular build and had some pieces of cloth wrapped around his shirtless torso and had what appeared to be bloodstains around his stomach. The other was a woman who was around Sally's age and wore a pink button-down shirt with jeans and was tending to him. The man and the woman looked up and saw Nick looking at them while Sally leaned right towards Nick's shoulder.

Nick quickly looked away. It wasn't long until the woman approached the couple.

"Hello," the woman said.

"Oh, hello," Nick said.

"My boyfriend and I noticed that you were looking at us and then we saw you and your girlfriend comforting each other," the woman said. "I'm Tonya, by the way. My boyfriend is Ross."

"My name is Nick," he said and his eyes shifted to Sally. "This here is Sally."

Sally turned around and looked up. "Hi there," Sally said.

Sally looked over at Ross. "May I ask you something?"

"Sure," Tonya said.

"What happened to your boyfriend?" Sally said.

"He was shot trying to save me," Tonya said. "This fat lady cop tried to kidnap me and when Ross saved me, that cop shot him. I can't believe how lucky he is to still be alive from that shot. I did everything I could to stop the bleeding."

"Looks like you did a good job," Nick said.

"Wait, did you say 'a fat lady cop'?" Sally asked. "Because I almost went through the same thing. Nick saved me from that happening. But we were almost killed, too."

"What happened?" Tonya said.

"We climbed up one of those rabbits in the Wonderland Plaza and we slipped and held onto the ears for dear life," Sally said.

"Sounds like you two went through a lot," Tonya said.

Ross had gotten up and limped a bit to get to Tonya, who was still talking to Nick and Sally.

"Hey, baby, what's going on here?" Ross said.

"Oh, we're just talking about what we have gone through," Tonya said.

Ross nodded his head. "Hi, I'm Ross," he said and reached his hand out to shake Nick's hand and Sally's hand.

"Nice to meet you," Nick said.

Nick and Sally couldn't be anymore glad that they were still alive. They also made a couple of new friends in the process. It was nice to bond over their mutual misfortunes. What they also shared was that Nick knew he did his best to protect Sally, while Tonya did everything she could to save Ross.

Sally gave Nick a hug and leaned her head in once again.

"I love you, Sally," Nick said. "I never thought I would feel this way, but I love you."

"I love you, too, Nick," Sally said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had thought about doing one on these two. I had always thought these two were a couple, so I thought why not write them as such. The bit with Ross and Tonya came out of nowhere, but I thought why not have two couples bond over their experiences, as well as the devotions that one has to the other.
> 
> I know that this was rather short, but it's not too bad. I still have some ideas for this one. One I want to do and may do next is on Stephen Chapman. I will have to brainstorm on what to do for that one.


End file.
